My Life In Holland

Thought I'd share this with you. Hits the nail on the head. WELCOME TO HOLLAND by Emily Perl Kingsley. c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved 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.

60 Minutes

I am just getting around to watching to 60 Minutes episode from last week. Anyone see it? It was about Steve Jobs andthn lead into iPads & Autism. Of course I imediately started crying. I found it so refreshing and happy in a way to see children like Mitchell. Usually whenever Autism is featured it about a child with Aspergers, high functioning Autism or severely severe Autism where the child is completely non functional. Mitchell falls somewhere in the middle. Site he dorsn't speak consistently but he does communicate and he knows exactly what he wants and h loves to be touch and to socialize but doesn't quite know how. Those are the people I saw on the program. An adult who just started using the iPad because before it was a game of charades to figure out his needs & wants. A 10 yr old boy who was considered low IQ and immature but once he had the iPad they learned how extensive his vocabulary was and he had a love for the opera. This makes me so hopeful and confident we are on the right path it Mitchell. We also were amazed Mitchell could write his name & read sight words without being taught to do so. It is all in there trying to get out. I often wonder why Mitchell is where he is on "the spectrum". Did we do something others did not do and that's why is seems smart or if we had tried something else could he be talking now? What if we had done this or that. It's so hard not to second guess every decision we make for him. But if I give myself time to process it I know we've made the right decision for us.

Family Photo

Since school pictures had been taken, I decided to get an updated one of Grace this past Monday. Her last professional photo was for her 1st birthday, she just turned 2 1/2 this month. Yah, I've been a little busy. Since that session went so well I decided to strike while the iron is hot and get us in for a family picture as well. Steve mentioned it on our anniversary and oddly enough he seemed excited about it. Other than stressing out about what everyone was to wear I was looking forward to it and thought it might go pretty well. The last family picture was taken in 2007 Mitchell had already regressed into Autism and Caroline was in the throws of the terrible two's. Three out of five of us had smiles on our faces and I don't remember the process being all that painful. So into Picture People we go a little before noon on Sunday. We are all in fall colors, Grace almost wore her princess ballet dress but I managed to find something that better fit our scheme. It starts out well without any yelling, kicking or hitting but then Grace decides she is not going to do what anyone is telling her. She doesn't want daddy do we switch then she doesn't want mommy. She wants her sippy cup then Mitchell is tired of waiting do he wanders off to get a drink too. We get everyone situated and I think out of each pose they figured 1 or 2 good shots. If someone had a sippy in their mouth I gave the OK to try again. Mitchell was being really cooperative in the beginning and following verbal instruction like a champ. Unfortunately, and there always seems to be an unfortunate turn of events, by the time we tried to get a group shot of kids only they all had had enough. In the end we let Mitchell pick his spot and placed everyone around him. This worked a little better. We ended up with some real life photos. Ever the optimist I told Stdve it could have been worse. Mitchell was only picking his nose in a few pictures. Grace managed a crazed smile even when she was screaming. Steven and Caroline didn't have a bad shot in the bunch, they handled themselves very nicely. Our pictures truly reflect who we are, no need to pretend we are a well kept well behaved bunch. Where's the fun in that? I'll share a picture in the morning when I get a chance to scan it.