Splendid Mayhem: LOGEN SPEAKS!

Welcome To Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Friday, July 27, 2007

LOGEN SPEAKS!

His SLP said that Logen officially has ONE WORD! "uh uh" Ya know, the slang for "no".

Logen is also doing WONDERFUL signing!

Here is a list of words he signs:

More
All Done
Help (which he TOTALLY abuses!!!)
Please
Potty
Airplane
Fish
Dog
Drink
Eat (he uses eat for drink most of the time)
Milk
On
(I think there are a few more, I just naturally do them when I talk to him now-- guess I'm having brain farts! hahaha)

We are working on:
Thank You
Up
Out
Butterfly
Mom
Dad
All of his colors
Animals
Bedtime (sleepy)

1 comment:

Andrea "The H family"July 29, 2007 at 8:42 PM
Oh girl! I'm so jealous!! I'm so wanting Luke to sign!! We are working on more..but he wants me to do it! Great job LOGEN!
ReplyDelete
Replies