Our Road to Holland

Wow, Emily is growing so fast. She is rolling over and very close to sitting up. I know we hear that all the time when it come to kids, but for Charlie and I we are realizing as she grows how easy and natural things come for her. As we watch her grow and develop we can't help but think of Caleb and the many challenges that he has faced and will continue to face. Even though it has become clear that he is high functioning, we continue to work hard to keep that developmental gap as small as possible.

Currently Caleb receives occupational therapy & speech therapy twice a month through the state. On top of that, we take him to private physical therapy twice a month and private speech once a week. Shortly after he was born we received this short story entitled “Welcome To Holland” by Emily Perl Kingsely from another parent who had a child with Down syndrome.

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.

Charlie and I have grown to love “Holland” and the many blessings it has to offer. I think we can honestly say we are so thankful and blessed to have Caleb in our family.

We realize he might not earn a college degree, but he will change the world one person at a time!