I HAD A CHOICE .........

and the choice was to be awake and in pain or to be awake and not in pain!
Mmmmm.......let me see.......a difficult one!
My arthritic old hips were in so much pain that I decided to take the meds which means it is nearly 3 am and I haven't managed any sleep.
This must be how people feel when they take Red Bull.
Oh well :)
No peace for the wicked.
But at least the ten year old is asleep which is always good news and restful for her and me.
She has had too many 2 am wake up calls for my liking recently and one was definitely caused by a circling police helicopter disturbing her sleep. Grrrrr!!!!!
Luckily I have no doctors or other appointments tomorrow so I should manage to catch up on some sleep whilst Beauty is in school.

















Because I cannot sleep I have been Stumbling and came across this

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. 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.



Holland to me is the most beautiful country in the world.