Welcome to Holland

I found this essay on a blog at Deaf Village and thought I would post it here to get more exposure. I thought it summed things up beautifully. We are often asked about Miles' hearing aids on the playground and when we inform people of Miles' permanent hearing impairment, there are often comments like, "Wow, that must be hard." Well, yes, and no. It's like- going to Holland. Enjoy.

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.
Its 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.

©1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved.

Deaf Village

We are now listed as contributors to Deaf Village (www.deafvillage.com) which also has many other blogs from individuals and parents of individuals who are deaf, with cochlear implants and hard of hearing like Miles. It's an interesting survey of the deaf and hard of hearing community. Check it out!

Miles' 15 month check up

Well, there have been a few interesting developments since Miles' last check up. He is now 32.75 inches tall, and 23.5 lbs. That puts him in the 90th percentile for height (pretty steady) but he's dropped to the 36th percentile in weight. He's been a little sick as of late so that may account for it. Also, we're thinking he's allergic to peanuts. Right before Thanksgiving, I gave him just the slightest bit of my toast that had some peanut butter on it. First he got all snotty and then started getting blotchy all over his body. About 15 minutes later he threw up. The doc said to just keep him away from it, maybe go see the allergist to do a whole panel. Everyone agrees that he's doing very well even though he's not walking yet. It's just a matter of time. Give him a push toy and he'll walk for miles but he still needs the assurance of something to hold on to.

The nurse who gave him his shots said the doctor came out of the examining room and told her, "You're going to have a hard time with this one."

"Why?" she asked. "Is he a real handful?"

"No," he replied, "but he's so cute you're not going to be able to bring yourself to give him the shots."

Miles is starting to say many approximations of words and do many different signs.

He uses "da-da" consistently to mean Daddy, teddy bear and ball, though he'll say da-da for lots of things.

He now calls me "ma-ma."

He says "baba" for bottle and signs for milk.

He says "ca" for car and "sheeze" for cheese. He can also approximate saying cracker.

I'm pretty impressed with his receptive language. I feel like the signing and the verbal words are coming super quick now, like he finally understands that all these objects have names and he's determined to learn them all.

Right after Miles had his vomit session from the peanut butter, I took him to Early Start for the first time in many months. He was unsure about where we were until we went to sit in circle time. Then his face lit up and he was so excited he could barely contain himself. He was so into being with all of his friends, singing songs, and playing with the parachute. When I came back after the parent rap session, he looked at me, waved and went right back to playing. He was not ready to go- the first time that every happened. If he keeps this up, he's going to be an uber-kindergartener. :)