One Week To Go

Well it has been almost three weeks with Livy's cast. She is doing much better and has seemed to adjust. It is still a challenge moving her around and it really takes two people to get her in and out of the car. Next Tuesday can't come soon enough. We are still waiting to get an update from the investigators. It has been a tough road not knowing what the next steps will be. I'm trying to take this all one day at a time.

My mom and dad were here last week to help and Jon's mom and step dad have been helping out with picking up Hailey from school. Can't imagine how we would do this alone.

Let's pray her leg has healed so we can move forward...it's time we get our lives back on track.

Another Difficult Road

Who would have know that last Monday after that great dentist visit, life would take such a bad turn. For those of you who have not yet heard, Olivia broke her leg at school last Monday the 1st. I went to pick her up and she was crying and in a lot of pain. We took her to the orthopedic doctor and come to be, she had a broken left femur. She is in a full leg cast for a month. There is an investigation taking place at the school and the Department of Children and Families is involved as well.

As of now, we do not have any answers and are obviously very upset. We know that she was picked up to be changed and then put down onto the floor. It has been a very difficult week especially for Livy. She has been having an increase in seizures due to the stress and pain. It is especially hard not knowing how she if feeling and that she can't tell us what happened.

Her cast is to be taken off on March 2nd. We're just praying she improves with each day and heals quickly. This is one of the LAST things Livy needed in her life. And she had been doing so well up to this point. Knowing her, she will come through this being the fighter that she is.

I will be taking some time off from posting to "Views From Our Shoes" but will update soon on how Olivia is doing.

Fitting Right In

I felt it important to write about a great experience we had today. It was Olivia's 6 month dentist cleaning appointment this morning and for someone who HATES going to the dentist (that's me!) I really love going to our girls' dentist office. For one, they are just terrific people. All very cheerful and sweet. I especially love how wonderfully they treat Olivia. When she first started going there years ago, she had a very high sensitivity to her mouth. We could barely get in there ourselves to brush her teeth. She was very vocal and would clearly be upset. They scheduled her first visit at a time we would be alone in the office. They were so accommodating and professional and took such good care of us.

When we walk in the door, I feel like we just fit in. It is such a great feeling seeing Livy in the "big" chair getting her teeth cleaned. I always leave there happy...they are all contagious! For moms like me, it is pretty cool having a "unique" girl like Livy but sometimes we just want them to be "typical". Who would have thought it would be with the dentist?

One Of My Favorite Poems

To those who have not read it and to those who have read it many, many times...

"Welcome to Holland"

By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987. 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.

Turn The Light Back On

Our family spent time on New Year's Eve writing a resolution list for this year. One for Jon, Hailey, Olivia, me and one for the family. They included the usual things like learning something new, working harder at something, and one of my favorites for Hailey, helping Livy to walk and talk. I am adding a new resolution to my list, to "turn the light back on in my life".

Last night I read an entry from one of the blogs I follow: Calm Amongst the Chaos

The author speaks about how she learned to turn her light back on after having a child with special needs. It amazes me how much in common I have with these other moms. It is as though she is speaking my words, my story. I told Jon that was what was missing from my life. That light that once shined so bright. Yes, there are times when there is a sparkle, a ray of light that comes from within but not that complete, whole, honest and true light.

My journey begins now to find ways to come out of this cave I sometimes find myself in. It includes fully learning to accept Livy the way she is and find comfort in what she is not. Five years into this journey and still I struggle. It is especially difficult when our children get sick and regress. It is during those times I need the most strength.

So I ask, what has your journey been to bring the light back in? Have you turned it back on or do you continue to search? Hoping this new year will bring my "series of events" to my "light bulb moment"!

Happy Holidays!

We would love to wish all of our followers and readers a very happy holiday season!

This was the first year since our girls have been born that we had a healthy and very happy Christmas. We feel so blessed and can't believe that one year ago we spent Christmas night in the hospital with Livy that led to surgery and a three month hospitalization. We felt so alive yesterday and so overwhelmed with what Christmas is all about. But we also did not forget those who are in the hospital, those who are sick and scared and who may only be beginning a journey like ours. This makes us only more grateful for our health and each other.

When asking Hailey last night at dinner what her favorite thing about Christmas was she replied, "Being with my family and that Livy is not in the hospital". That pretty much says it all. To a happy and healthy new year to all!

Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself

Tonight I was updating Livy's feeding and medication schedules and found this paragraph in an old note I came across. I don't remember when I found it or where, but I know it was some time ago. After reading it again, I am still moved by the words. I love what it says about how a mom feels about her daughter, Isabel.

It reads...

"I am profoundly grateful for Isabel, special needs and all. Because she has taught me to live more richly, to love more deeply. To feel pain all the way to the core of my being. To be excited by little improvements here and there. Because of Isabel (and Steve, and Robert) I feel like I have fully participated in what it means to be human. I'm not so sure that without Isabel's condition, that I would ever have had this new found perspective."

I feel I could easily replace the names with Olivia, Hailey & Jon. Such perfect words I will never forget.