Welcome to Holland!

Welcome to Holland. A beautiful poem by Emily Perl Kingsly c1987. It is about raising a special needs child. Most people don't realize what goes into raising a child with special needs, let alone raising multiple special needs children. I have three. Juliana is 6, Matthew (Matty) is 4, and Joshua is 3. There are many days that living here in Holland, I wish I were in Italy. (No, I don't really live in Holland...watch the video if you haven't already and you will understand.) This week has been one of the really bad weeks. I ended up so depressed yesterday that I couldn't even talk about it. I spent most of the evening crying. Those who know me, know I don't cry easily. There were many things that went into this, too many to list and I doubt anyone really wants to hear all of it. The end of my day was when it finally got to be too much. Part of it was the fact that my children refuse to pick up toys. They don't care about bribes, they don't care about punishments. If they don't want to do it, there is no way you can make them. After an hour and a half of fighting them on it, I heard them fighting in the other room. Yes, I know all siblings fight, but this was it. The fight that pushed me over the edge. Juliana wanted to clean up their bedroom and Matty wanted to clean up the living room. All should be good...correct? No. Juliana wanted Matty to stay in the room with her because she said she was scared of cleaning up the toys by herself. Every other night of the week, Juliana cleans the bedroom and Matty cleans the living room. They decided that by themselves and have always been happy with their decision. So naturally Matty says no, and they start to fight. It finally gets to the point of violence and screaming. I went in their room, looked at them and in a quiet defeated voice said "That is it. I've had enough. I am done with the two of you fighting and I am tired of fighting with you guys to clean up a few toys. I'm going to put Joshua to bed, and then both of you are going to bed early tonight. No songs, no stories. Start getting ready for bed." and I walked out. They are used to hearing me beg, plead and yell for them to clean up toys. This was the first time I had ever used that voice with them. I went and got Joshua ready for bed, or at least tried to. He was bouncing off the walls and I couldn't get him to hold still. I finally got him in pajamas and he got back up and started bouncing around and humming.  I decided to take a minute to download the song in the video above and when I played the preview to make sure it was the right one Joshua stopped bouncing, stopped humming and came over to me and sat down quietly. He just stared at my phone. After the song ended, I asked him if he was ready for bed and he started bouncing and humming again. He repeated the sign for "bed" when I signed it to him and I took him in his room. I asked him using signs, what song he wanted for bed. (We have a sign for each of his favorite songs.) He looked at me and signed "music". I said and signed "you want the music from my phone? Again?" and he signed "again, music". I played the song and he went still. He just laid there and stared at my phone. When it ended, he signed "again" and I said "ok, but this is the last time because you need to get some sleep". I played it again and he smiled when it came on again. He was so calm and so happy. I couldn't believe that I have been searching and searching for something to calm him when he gets all crazy and here it was! Something so simple. There were many other things over the last few days that contributed to my depression, but when you look around and you have three children eating inappropriate objects, screaming, rocking, bouncing, visually stimming, orally stimming, physically stimming and stimming in any other way that they could be stimming, you get to a point where you break. Not because they are being bad, not because you are being a bad parent, but just because you look around at everyone living in Italy while your stuck in Holland when all you ever wanted to be was in Italy and you can't take it anymore. All over the internet I see my friends and family with their families in Italy. Families where you don't have to worry about learning sign language or what PECS are, or what vestibular and proprioperception means, or fragile X syndrome, or Angleman's, or occupational therapy, ABA therapy, speech therapy, IEP's, IFSP's, YCDD, and all the BILLIONS of other things that go along with having a special needs child. So while I love my children, and I am sooooooo thankful that God has blessed me with them and our beautiful family, yes....I have days where I wish I was in Italy. The pain of Italy never goes away. There really are so many wonderful things here in Holland, but some days Holland is cold, rainy, dark and damp while Italy is sunny, warm and beautiful with a slight breeze. Right now, I wish I was in Italy....