Holland is Beautiful!

Have you read this before?

"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 Sistine Chapel, Gondolas. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting. After several 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 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 a while and you catch your breath, you look around. You begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. And 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 experience will never, ever, ever, go away. 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."

This was written in 1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley...let's see, in 1987 I was engaged to my husband, planning to marry the following New Years and start a family right away. In my plans, we would quickly have a house full of children, whom I would stay home with and homeschool. Each of them would be perfectly well mannered, talented at something and always say "Yes, Ma'am" and "No, Ma'am". They would never disobey, never lie or do anything to embarrass me in public and never yell at me and call me an idiot!!

You see, I had made my plans. I was going to Italy, and no mistake about it!

So, what happened? How is it that I find myself in Holland with a special needs child who does not speak the language I know? What do I do with this child God has given me, who yells at me and calls me names. Who hits me and lashes out in anger. Who does not save his theatrics for home, but will explode just about anywhere, for who knows how long. This child. This child does NOT speak Italian!

This child. This child with the amazing green eyes. This child with a sense of humor that has me laughing every day. This child who knows things beyond his years. Who has endured things I don't even want to contemplate. Who has an inner strength and fortitude that is formidable. This child who loves his Mommy. Whose favorite place after a big explosion is curled up in Mommy's lap. This child speaks Dutch.

Guess what? I am starting to learn Dutch. I have thrown out my Italian language books, my Fromer's guides, my links to good Italian restaurants. I am developing a taste for bread and herring, for cheese and sausage. I am learning to love living in a place I never wanted to go. I am beginning to accept that Holland is exactly the place for us.

Brakes!!!

According to family lore, I was walking at 6 months, running soon after, and I have not stopped since. No snuggling in Grandpa's lap for me. I had things to do and people to see...and for the last forty something years, that is how I have lived my life. Full throttle, get-out-of-my-way, let's get moving!

If you were one of the unfortunate ones who got run over, please accept my sincere apology.

Now it seems, I have come to a place in my life where God is telling me to be still...literally and in other ways too. I have been in bed, flat on my back for the last eight days - culprit? The disk between my L4& L5 vertebrae. It seems that this particular disk has had enough of the abuse I have piled on it, and has decided to vacate the premises. Problem is, I still need said disk, so the struggle that is going on between us "Get back where you belong!" "No way, I am outta here!", is proving to be a painful one.

So now, until I can have a consult with an orthopedic surgeon, I am stuck here, praying that a stray cough or sneeze is not the trigger that sends me to the hospital for emergency back surgery.

I have also learned that the phrase "In my humble, true opinion" is not a very good way to live life. Yes, I, like many others, have preferred ways for doing things...trouble is, I have tended to think that my way is the only way. Again, my sincere apology...I don't mean to be bossy. I just figured I would save you the trouble of learning the hard way what does not work....arrogance at it's worst. I really am sorry.

Brakes. God is good at applying them at the right time. Even when we don't see it that way. I pray that I will continue to see what I need to see during this forced still time. And I covet your prayers as well.

Hi, my name is Trina...

...and I am an addict - a Facebook addict that is!

You know you are a Facebook Addict when:

10) Your kid says something funny, and your first thought is how to word it for a status update.

9) You walk in the door from, well just about anywhere, and the first thing you do after you say hi, is go check FB

8) You spend hours scrolling through other people's pages to see if you missed anything.

7) You keep checking back to see if anyone has posted a new update, even at 2 am.

6) You justify all the time you spend on FB.

5) It rains, or you see a cloud shaped like a dragon, or the grass grows 1/16th of an inch, and you have to write a status update.

4) You would rather be on FB than playing with your kids. (ouch that one hurts)

3) You post a status update in the morning, and spend the rest of the day looking to see if anyone has commented.

2) Your house is a mess and your to-do list keeps growing, and growing, and growing...

1) You know you are a FB addict when you spend more time with your face to the computer screen than in living real life with real people.

So, yes, I am an addict, but a recovering one. I stopped FB'ing three weeks ago aside from a post to clear up the "Birthday Dilemma" and a post to let our CWAC ladies know about the next sewing bee.

At first it was hard, and it really bothers me that it was hard. I thought about FB all the time and wondered what I was missing. Guess what? Anything you miss, your friends will tell you when you call them or meet them at the park or for MNO!! A radical idea, I know, but true nonetheless!!

And this from a girl who was a teen and young adult before computers and cell phones even existed!! I should know better!!

So, here I go forward...talking to my hubby, blogging my little blog, playing with my kids and calling my friends on the phone. Ah, it's nice to breath the fresh air!



BTW, I need to borrow a bike for my niece to ride while she's here...anyone have one I can borrow? She's ten. :D

yawn... :-0

Did you know it is possible to sit for eight hours in one spot and have a finished baby blanket to show for it? Well, it is! Only problem is that the eight hours went from 7:30 pm to 3:30 am and as you mothers know, the kids still get up at the same time, no matter what time you go to bed! Thankfully, I have an amazing husband, who got up and got the morning started while I got my shower, but I must say I am feeling that late night right now - I can't even type I am so sleepy!

Anyway, a story about the children: A certain sweet child (whom I love and who, coincidentally, is 'betrothed' to my daughter) told my Jalapeño that "Monsters live in his closet at night". Since then, it has been a real struggle to get said Jalapeño into bed at night without locking the closet (to keep the monster inside, you know?). A side question, what is the logic that a little flip lock will keep a monster in the closet? But I digress...

The closet in the boys room is a walk in, and until a year ago, it stored all of my craft supplies - hence the flip lock on the outside of the door to keep the little ones out. When I set up my studio, all of that stuff got moved downstairs and I put a shelf and toys in the closet for the boys. They love to go in the closet, turn off the light and play in there - with the door closed! I am guessing by now that little boys do not employ much logic in their day to day lives, because, I mean, what about that monster that kept us all up for two hours last night?!? Where does he go during the day?!

Anyway, on the weekends, to garner a little Mommy and Daddy talk time, we often let Sweet Potato go in the boy's room when they are all awake, to play before breakfast. We can usually stretch it out for at least an hour, except when Sweet Potato gets the lock open on the closet door and they all go in there to play. You see, the closet backs right up to our bathroom/bedroom, so all noises are magnified greatly!

So, Steve (as I said, an amazing husband and father) went in this am, to quiet the raging beasts, to find one little Pineapple, standing on a Fisher Price firehouse outside the closet door, trying desperately to reach the flip lock, and thus lock his siblings in the closet! I am guessing that his next move would have been to move the firehouse over to the light switch and begin madly flipping the light on and off, while his siblings wail and pound on the door - but that's just me knowing my little cherub's odd sense of "what is funny". Steve came and told me what was going on, and I told him that I guessed that Pineapple had just seen his sister use the firehouse to unlock the door, and Steve said that "Yes, there was definitely information sharing going on!"

Which brings me to a confession (I have already asked for forgiveness for this, by the way). When I was about 12, I decided to "have a little fun" at my little sister's expense. We had a hook and eye lock on the outside of our bedroom door, to keep out a new little brother who liked to crawl into our room and destroy anything within reach. Again, not a super sturdy lock system, but enough to keep that little booger out (sorry Mike ;-)).

One day, my little sister was playing with a friend in our room and I thought it would be hysterically funny to lock the door and set off the fire alarm. So I did. And totally did not expect the reaction that I got! When the girls found that the door was locked, they did what any public school trained child would do - they headed for the window! Now, I must say that the window is only about five feet off the ground - but they were seven! So, quickly discerning that I would not be able to sit down for a month (at best) if my sister fell out of a bedroom window, I opened the door and turned off the alarm. And felt horrible about it for years, until I finally asked her to forgive me for being so mean. Which she did - because she is kind and gracious, despite living with me for 18 years!

All that to say - like mother, like son - it must be true!

Happy Sunday!

t