Holland and Italy

I love this! It's written about having a special needs child, but I think it applies to a lot of things in life. Divorce, addiction, single parenthood . . .

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.

Rob and I were downstairs cleaning up and came upstairs to find the four older kiddos cuddled up together on our bed, watching a movie. I love times when they are all getting along!

The night before Brittney and her family left, Brittney came over one last time to babysit. Rob and I went out for dinner, then for a walk in the mall (it was too hot outside to walk somewhere not air-conditioned), then looking for used books at one of our favorite stores. We came home to find Jack conked out and the girls watching a movie with Brittney. We took one last picture of Brittney and the kids (minus Jack, who was asleep, and Beth, who refused to be in the picture) ~


Then Brittney scooped Jack up and carried him to bed one last time ~


Rob took a picture of Brittney, Eva and me, then Brittney and I went for a drive (to Sonic of course). I really miss Brit! We've become really good friends over the last several years :)

My current quarter ends this evening at 5pm, so this week I've been spending a significant amount of time working on my final project, a powerpoint presentation. Working on homework has proven difficult with all five kids at home. On Wednesday Jack decided he needed to spend time with me. I really had to work on my ppt, (and I had just taken him on a Mommy date the night before), so I tried to come up with something to distract him. Nothing worked until I spotted a washable marker on my nightstand and had a brilliant idea :) I told Jack he could color on my foot and leg. Thrilled at the prospect of participating in such a forbidden activity, Jack happily went to work ~

I discovered that being drawn on tickles and is just a tad distracting, so I told Jack he could take his shirt and pants off and color on himself. He shot me an incredulous look, then enthusiastically began. Doing his best to take full advantage of the opportunity, he managed to cover a large percentage of his chest, face, arms, legs and feet. He asked me to decorate his back and so I drew a large smiley face. Kylie discovered what he was up to and got in on it too. And I got two full slides done for my powerpoint! :)

Eva started crawling this past Sunday, slipping in just under the wire before her 7th month mark to keep up with the three older siblings who crawled at six months (Kylie didn't crawl until 10 months - she almost went straight to walking). Eva managed to come with her own unique way of crawling - she moves her arms in the traditional method, then hops her little legs along behind her. It works very well though and we've reinstalled gates at the top and bottom of the stairs.

It's been quite a while since we had a crawling baby in the house! I had forgotten how much they get into. Eva's favorite thing is paper. Any paper, no matter what size, is quickly and efficiently reduced to a wet wad. I'm thinking of renting her out as a form of recycling :) Apparently her Oregonian roots run deep! She found a stack of school papers this morning and was quite thrilled with herself :)

Summer Movie Review #1

One of the theaters by us does a summer movie program for kids. You buy the tickets ahead of time and pick a day of the week. Every week for 10 wks they play a different kids' movie. We've decided to review each of the movies as sort of a summer homework (not that I used that word when explaining it to the kids) project. They'll each take turns dictating the movie review to me. We go Thursdays, but I didn't get around to doing last week's review until today.

Clifford's Big Red Movie
By Jack

Clifford was trapped. And then some more animals helped him get out. They rescued him and Clifford was free. Then the car came and get him back in the cage. And then Emily Elizabeth came and rescued Clifford. And then the girl gave Clifford back to her.

Clifford went out to get Tummy Yummies. He went to the circus with a talking cow and a fox and a puppy. The animals did tricks. All the animals do the tricks and Clifford helped so the cow didn't fall and he helped all the animals so they didn't get hurt. And the big person called him Big Red. Clifford wanted to get Tummy Yummies. And then some cars came and then he was trapped. And then everybody came and Emily Elizabeth came and saw Clifford. Then she gave him a big hug. And then the movie was over. And they lived happily ever after.

Brittney

By Jack

I think her the best aunt ebered (ever). Her play games with me. And her do the dishwasher and I help her do the dishes. And I play wid her. We go on adventures - I go on adventures with my aunt. I do lots of things with my aunt. And I want to play dinosaurs wid her. And I maked dinner wid her. And I goed shopping wid her too. We get things in a bag for kids. I watch movies with her at the movie theater. I want to read books wid my aunt. Maybe we goed to Utah and see her??? I would play wid her. I wish we could move to Bittney's house. Her are the best aunt ebered. I play wid her allllll the day.

Summer Plays

The kids have decided they are bored . . . already. This does not bode well for summer as we are less than three days into it. Anyway, when the choruses of "I'm bored!!!" started up, I told them to put on a play. They each had to come up with a character, then figure out a story that combined all the characters.

Jack was not interested in being part of the play. He was much more interested in throwing toys at the girls, running through the middle of the girls' games, and going "fishing" with dinosaurs on strings over their heads. So he sat on my lap and played "Angry Birds" on my laptop. Once I saw the outfits the kids came up with for the play, I sent Jack upstairs to retrieve my camera. I make it a point to never miss a chance to take a picture that can be used as blackmail when the kids are older ;)

I had to take several pictures of Jack first ~



The cast of the first play, entitled "The Tooth Fairy, 2 Farmers, and Little Red Riding Hood". Kylie's friend Caitlin spent the night last night and she and Kylie played the farmers. Beth was Little Red Riding Hood and Megan rounded out the cast as the Tooth Fairy.

After Beth changed out of her costume, Jack decided to reprise the role of Little Red Riding Hood.

Beth insisted on this photo. Not quite sure what exactly she's doing ~

The cast of the second play - "The Princess, 2 Bears and the Cooker"

Last Hurrah with Brittney and Eva's 1st Ice Cream Cone

Since it's summer and all the kids are home all day, grocery shopping on Monday mornings doesn't work quite as well. Rob and I decided I'd go shopping Monday evenings instead and take one of the kids with me so we could use it as a Mommy date. This past Monday was Megan's turn. She and I had a wonderful time! We drove down the highway with the windows down, singing along to a cd I made from iTunes. Meg had lots of fun pushing the cart and putting things in the it. She spotted pear cactus leaves in the produce section and asked if we could get some and figure out how to cook them, so we got a few. Anyone have any good recipes for cactus???

When we got home, this is what we found ~

Eva got her first tooth a bit ago. It's now visible enough to show up in a photo. I'm somewhat surprised that she still only has one. I don't think any of our kids have ever gotten one tooth at a time, they've always come in pairs.

The time has almost come for Brittney to leave :( She and her family (who are moving to UT), leave this coming Monday, so Brit and I went out one last time. I asked where she wanted to go for dinner, and the answer was the mall food court. We've been there several times (the most memorable was the day my contractions started when I was pg with Eva). We always get the teriyaki chicken from a Japanese place and then ice cream on the way out.

Eva fell asleep in the car, so she cuddled right up to Brittney when Brit took her out ~

After getting our ice cream cones, we sat outside and ate them. Eva decided it was time for her first ice cream cone.

She loved it, of course!

What a mess! :) Eva got ice cream all over Brittney, but Brit didn't mind :)

After my ice cream was gone, Eva grabbed Brittney's

One last picture of Eva. Notice her little curled toes :) ~

College Roommate, Walking to School, Summer's Here, First Swim in the Pool!

Have I mentioned that I love facebook??? It's allowed me to get back in touch with so many people that I had lost contact with. One of those is Miriam, who was my college roommate the summer I met and married Rob. She now lives only a few hours from us and came up to visit for a few days a week ago :) She bought her baby, Felix, who is a few months older than Eva. It was fun to watch Eva and Felix play together. He loved Eva's hair (Miriam said it was because he has none, so it fascinated him). Visiting with Miriam was wonderful :) We instantly picked up where we left off when we last saw each other 13 years ago, although it was a little surreal to realize that we somehow were now old enough to have children!

Miriam is a jewelry designer (see her designs here ~ http://www.etsy.com/shop/381midalane), among other things, and she brought her box of supplies up and let Megan help her design and put together some very long peacock feather earrings, which Megan went nuts over. She then let Megan design a set of earring all by herself and help Meg put them together. Megan put five peacock feathers on each one and finished them off with tiny bottles that have little rolled up papers in them so they look like a message in a bottle. Megan is modeling them below with Miriam and Felix. Miriam is now on Meg's list of favorite people ever!

We gave Eva a bath in the sink the other day and thought she looked really cute (of course, we almost always think she looks really cute), so we pulled out the camera ~


By the way, Eva's eyes are dark grey. They remind me of a black olive cut in half as she has a black ring around the outside of her iris. They are beautiful :)

I decided to record our last walk to school for posterity (this was actually the day before the last day of school as we went to Beca's house the next day). This was our last walk ever with Beth, Jack and Eva as Beth starts kindergarten next year. Beth decided to wear her backpack. Jack wore his "jetpack", which allows him to fly down the street. Note the red safety belt that prevents him from falling ~

Eva, of course, rode in my carrier. I love this carrier as it adjusts to fit any size baby/toddler and it folds up really easily :)


Jack got tired on the way home and apparently his jet pack ran out of fuel, so he hitched a ride ~

Since it was a half day of school and 98 degrees outside, we went swimming with Brittney. It was Eva's first time ever in a pool and she loved it! All the kids were glad pool season has started up again. We spent three hours in the water (except Eva, who got out for an hour and a half in the middle and took a nap in my arms, then Brittney's arms, then played on our friend Sherrie's lap). I coated the kids in sunscreen, but they still got a little toasted. I did not coat myself in sunscreen and I now resemble a lobster. I will wear sunscreen from now on!!!