I love Holland

If you live in the Little Rock area and listen to B 98.5, then you probably heard the Champions for Children RadioThon they did about a week or so ago for Arkansas Children's Hospital. I could barely listen to it without completly melting into a blubbering mess. The illustration below did me in completely. If you have a child that's got an "issue", then you will be able to relate to this. If you don't, then count your blessings. I count my blessings and Praise our Abba Father that Lauren's "issue" is minor, and treatable. So many children have issues that take them to places I cannot fathom and cringe to think about.


May you always be thankful for healthy and happy babies/children.



The Beauty of Holland by Emily Pearl Kingsley (thank you Lisa Fischer from The Morning Rush for emailing this to me!)
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 guidebooks and make your wonderful vacation plans. The coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very, 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 flight attendant 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 landed in Holland and there you must stay, forever.
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 guidebooks. 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 awhile and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. 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 go away, because the loss of that dream is a 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.


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And so while some of you can relate to that, others may not. And that's okay. And even though Lauren's birthmarks are not a disability in any way... it still sometimes feels like we are living in Holland. But I'm here to tell you that I wouldn't have it any other way. God knows the plans He has for Lauren. Plans to give her a hope and a future. And I am LOVING Holland.


Isn't that smile contagious?

She is a beautiful and healthy 18 month old! She will always be my baby, no matter how big she gets. To keep you updated... here are a few stats from her 18 month check up:

1. 20.4 lbs!!! Finally we made to 20! She is still in the 5th percentile for weight.

2. I can't remember how tall she is without looking at the paper, but I think she was in the 25th percentile for height.

3. Developmentally the Doc says she is on track with a vocabulary that is growing by the day. Sometimes you have to prompt her to say words, but I think that is her just being stubborn. We have no idea where she gets this trait. :) Words she knows: Mama, Daddy, uh oh, ball, Molly (it sounds different, but it's close to mama), cracker, tee tee, eat, cookie, Nina (for my mom, but it comes out Nanny), Mimi, Papa, no, go, bubble, nigh-nigh, peek-a-boo (sounds like Pee Poo!). There might be a few others, but I forget. Like I said though, she can say these words but she doesn't always use them each time. I am always saying Please and Thank You, but she is just not picking up on the importance of that yet. Soon, I hope! (And yes, Aunt Jen, I am trying to get her to learn Wa-Wa) :)

4. Um.... so... we are starting to have issues with tantrums. My sweet baby turns into a pool of tears and screaming if she doesn't get her way. Oh my goodness I hope this is normal. But at the same time I've got to find a way to nip that in the bud because my nerves CAN'T HANDLE the screaming fits of rage that come from that tiny 20 pound baby. She can go from happy to holy terror in a matter of 10 seconds or less. No kidding.