Splendid Mayhem: Logen & His "Talker"

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, February 13, 2009

Logen & His "Talker"

I found Mr Logen chillin' in the kitchen the other day with his talker. I couldn't resist taking a picture of it!
He does pretty good with it. If he had better hand coordination, I think he'd be zapping through it very quickly.

For those of you that have asked: Logen uses the Vantage Plus by Prentke Romich. The device uses the unity language, which is different and takes some getting used to for those of us who already have our language mapped out- but I'm learning with Logen!

4 comments:

DroopyFebruary 14, 2009 at 1:42 AM
Unity is great!

I went to a seminar by Prof. Bruce Baker (one of the inventors of unity) and he told me the best way for a parent to learn unity is to sit down (after the kids are in bed) with a bottle of red and have a play....it helps you to think in minspeak! LOL

Is Logen's speechy Gail Van Ta.......?

It made such a difference to Kate's communication I hope it does the same for Logen!
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Ellen SeidmanFebruary 14, 2009 at 4:16 PM
I have heard good things about that device! Max uses a Dynavox, it's also taken some getting used to.
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KieraFebruary 16, 2009 at 10:54 PM
What a great picture! Logan looks adorable with it!
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BarbaraFebruary 17, 2009 at 10:00 AM
Great picture! It's so good that he likes using it. I'm sure he'll just keep improving with it.
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