Splendid Mayhem: Driving

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.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Driving

Ok, so obviously- I am not driving! Adam is!! LOL We have been up since 8 (Parker the alarm clock woke us up!) I ran Logen to therapy this morning and went home to finish packing. We finally got in the van around noon. It's not 3:23 and we are um, about 45 minutes from home. We had a few errands to do!! We should arrive arounf 7ish. Depending on the stops. We are traveling on "children time" :)

Logen has no clue it's his birthday :( Poor guy... his mom and dad just shove him in the car!! Hey, atleast we did turn a movie on :) He's watching "The Wild" as I type!!

Perhaps I can update driving home if the 'net doesn't work at Mama June's.

Oh, guess what I saw??? Maybe I am a complete dork- but I even pulled out the camera! It was a burnt SUV (We think it was a Ford Escape). The tow truck pulled up next to us at a stop light and I was in awe! I had to take a pic. I will upload it later. Maybe we will have a poll on the vehicle type! haha. The driver of the truck as well as Adam gave me funky looks for taking pics of it. Hmm.... maybe I AM a dork!

1 comment:

AnonymousAugust 27, 2007 at 9:24 PM
Hey chica- get your butt on here and let the world know you are alive:) Hope everything went wonderful!!! And if not, feel free to vent and eat LOTS of ice cream!
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