Welcome to Holland

How you ever imagined what it would be like to hear that your unborn child - the perfect baby you have been dreaming about- has a disability? This essay by Emily Perl Kingsley describes the emotions better than anything else I have come across.

"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."

By the way, I LOVE TULIPS!

Tulip Festival

Antalya loved being outside in the sunshine with her cousins.

Three generation shot (with Antalya being a little camera shy).

Tagged

Thanks Laura for tagging me! Here are 10 neat things about Antalya.

1. She likes ice cream, but hates pudding and yogurt.

2. She loves to camp.

3. She is very determined. It doesn't matter how many obstacles I create, she always gets into whatever it is she wants. 

4. She loves music, and loves to dance. She loves when I turn on American Idol and performances from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She pulls herself up next to the TV and dances away!

5. She spent a week backpacking through Patagonia (brrrr) with very little complaining.

6. She loves practicing her signs. She tells me she wants to "eat" all day long. She always gets a "I'm so proud of myself" look. She is trying so hard to communicate and is doing so well.

7. She is a little social butterfly - no stranger anxiety with this little girl. I was recently at a funeral and after sitting on my lap for 5 minutes, she was ready to make new friends. So she continued to make her way down the pew, stopping at each person for a few minutes, then reaching out for the next person.

8. She loves to watch Baby Signing Time.

9. She loves to give kisses and big bear hugs.

10. She is an absolute angel. Anyone that knows her will agree! I am so blessed to be her mom.

I'm tagging Christine, Brittany, and Lisa to tell us 10 things about their kids. 

Legacy

Today I attended the funeral of a sweet lady that lived near us when I was growing up. As I listened to the remarks made about her life, I started thinking about my own funeral. What kind of things will people say about me? What will be their memories of me? What will be the impact I have had on the lives of those individuals who come to celebrate my life once I have moved on? What will be my legacy? What is it that turns an ordinary life into a great one? I've heard it said before - many times, actually - that life is what is happening NOW. Each moment, each hour, each day, we are living our lives - we are becoming who we will be remembered as - we are either moving forward towards our goals, or falling behind. It's such a simple truth, yet how often do we let the moments, or the days pass us by while we wait for some future event - while we wait and dream about the things we will do ONE DAY? I do it all too often. I'll set aside a supply of emergency food when we have more room than our one-bedroom apartment we are living in. I'll spend more time teaching and reading to Antalya when she can understand me better. I'll call so-and-so tomorrow when I have more time. The list goes on and on. Why don't we stop waiting and start becoming the person we want to be now?

"I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present...because life is the moment we're living now." (From The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho)

Bath Please!

I was in the middle of fixing dinner tonight when Antalya crawled up to me and started signing "bath". She just learned the sign about a week ago, and is the first sign she knows that doesn't have to do with eating. I was so proud of her! How could I not stop what I was doing and go put her in the bath tub for a few minutes? I am so excited that she is started to communicate more.

Antalya's Favorite Toy

Fisher Price Learning Piggy Bank

One of Antalya's therapists loaned us this toy a few weeks ago. It quickly became the favorite! I love that it can do so much. Right now Antalya has fun practicing things such as push (the nose plays music when you push it), in, out, open, close. The coin slot is just big enough for the coin, so she is forced to work on her coordination and fine motor skills getting the coin at just the right angle to fit inside. Once she gets a little bigger we can use the coins to learn colors, animals (the coins have a the heads and the tails of different animals), big vs small (the coins are two different sizes), and counting. 

Wordless Wednesday - First Bubbles Experience

Easter

Here are a few pics of Antalya's first Easter Egg Hunts. She had a great time. Especially when she found there was something inside the wrapper she had been sucking on.....chocolate!

March Mascara Madness

Has your tube of mascara almost run dry like mine? Is it time to buy a new one? Wouldn't it feel good if your buying a new mascara helped someone else out? Well, now is the chance. Chelsea is one of the cutest 2 year old girls out there. She as Down syndrome; she also was diagnosed with Leukemia 6 months ago. She is on her 5th round of chemo. Her mom is on a Mary Kay mascara mission to help out. Click here to read all about it.