Rock Chalk Babyhawk: It is fall, it is fall, the leaves are falling everywhere...

Sunday, November 15, 2009

It is fall, it is fall, the leaves are falling everywhere...

We are enjoying fall around here... Babyhawk really enjoys playing in the leaves. Here she is with her Godsister and Godbrother:

Papahawk's Steelers played in the semifinals last week, so Babyhawk and I bundled up to watch the boys. Unfortunately, they lost - but not for lack of trying:

Babyhawk graduated from her room at school and is now a Starfish! It is a preschool type room so it is a good test to see if she will be ready to go to the real deal next fall. She was moved with some of her best buds, so it has been going great! We had to create a poster showing her family's favorite things for the wall: And you can all email me to tell us we are crazy, but we decorated for Christmas this weekend! Since Papahawk and I are going on our big trip in NINE DAYS we thought this was a good time to get it all out. It also helped that Papahawk got to hang Christmas lights in 65 degree weather...

Babyhawk is loving the season already. Here she is decorating her tree.

Babyhawk had a b-day party this weekend for her little friend J at Build-a-Bear. She made a panda bear, dressed like Santa and holding a football.... only our child!

Babyhawk is getting excited for Christmas, but she is even more excited for Geema's big visit and her cousins for Thanksgiving!!!

Have a great week!

1 comment:

Butterball said...: I love Babyhawk's gymnastics skills... giving Shawn Johnson a run for her money! Also, have SO much fun on your trip. Lots of love...; November 17, 2009 at 3:45 PM

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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.