Rock Chalk Babyhawk: January 2007

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Week 14

We went to the Doctor yesterday and heard babyhawk's little heartbeat! It was such a great feeling to hear that the little one is really there and growing fast! We scheduled our next ultrasound (the one where they identify the sex) on February 21st. Still no maternity clothes yet - although we are prepared for the day when the pants stop buttoning...

Take Care!

Monday, January 15, 2007

The "Boys" are back in town...

The boys got haircuts to start off the new year in style. They love their Cowboy scarves...

Little Pres is cuddling up to E while he plays some Madden.

E, M and J were out for a weekend of Madden Football and Kansas B-ball. It was so great to see them all... Pres and Sinatra will miss them the most - I don't think they have ever been cuddled so much!

We are both so thankful for all of our great friends and family. We want you to know how much we love each and every one of you and how important you are in our lives. You never know when you may lose someone you care about and when you need the strong shoulders of friends to lean on and get you through it all... Be thankful for those special people in your life!

Welcome to Holland

by Emily Perl Kingsley

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.