W<\/span>e have all read, or at least heard of, the Emily Perl Kingsley essay made famous by Dear Abby. You know the one, about if you have a child with special needs, it\u2019s like having a wonderful vacation planned for Italy but you end up going to Holland instead. It goes on to say how you can spend the whole time beefing about missing Italy or you can just enjoy Holland. Holland\u2019s wonderful! It\u2019s not as flashy and stylish but has its own special charms, etc. It\u2019s very inspirational. I\u2019ve always loved the essay, especially after I had a child diagnosed with special needs. But it fails to grasp one important component that crops up the moment you begin this new, unexpected journey.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the fact that once you\u2019ve been re-routed to Holland, you\u2019ve still got to spend two-thirds of your vacation on the damn phone finding your luggage, which is sitting in the airport in Rome. Yup, this is what it is really like when the airplane of your life has landed in the country called Special Needs Child and you become the chief translator, problem-solver and point man.<\/p>\n

Suddenly you are struggling with a new language, new country, with a sweet, kind, vulnerable baby in your arms and you don\u2019t even have even have a hotel reservation. So you grab a local map, quickly exchange your money and get on the phone. Doctors. Specialists. Scheduling tests. Insurance companies. Scheduling further testing. Insurance companies. Explaining to friends and relatives what\u2019s going on. Billing departments. If this is a later flight, explaining to your wonderful \u201cDutch\u201d child what the tests are for. Finding the appropriate school. Surviving bad doctors. Insurance companies. Learning to trust your instincts. Driving to physical therapy appointments. Insurance companies. Waiting for your calls to be returned. Money. Insurance companies.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Your vacation is spent in problem solving mode. Sure, you glance out the window from time to time, noticing the beauty and serenity of Holland, but heck, first you\u2019ve got to find a place to stay. So you plow ahead, immersing yourself in fine print, consultations and decisions. \u201cIs this the right diagnosis? Does he need occupational therapy too? What the hell is occupational therapy and how do I explain it to my mother? Am I ignoring my other \u201cItalian\u201d child? Where are those forms? How do I communicate to the teacher\/doctor\/therapist what my child needs? The doctor said more playdates but when do I schedule one when that stupid little friend\u2019s mother won\u2019t call me back? Am I explaining my child\u2019s condition properly? Should I even explain at all? Am I violating his privacy? Meds=Good? Meds=Bad? If I don\u2019t do the fifty pages of physical therapy homework the therapist gives me to do with him every week, am I a bad mother, forever damaging my child\u2019s chance for a normal life? Should I make dinner and just read the kids a book (not wanting to neglect the \u201cItalian\u201d child) or practice fine motor skill scissor use, with an emphasis on grip, hand position and spatial placement? Am I micro-managing, or am I too casual, neglecting the most important component?\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not even thinking about Italy. You just want to get out of the frickin\u2019 airport terminal.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve located most of your luggage (gotten some kind of working diagnosis, gotten your child\u2019s \u201cteam\u201d in place, know where to go for therapies, tests, etc.) you\u2019ve still got to learn how to speak your child\u2019s special language. Now this learning curve is steep since you first have to understand how his brain works\u2026how he learns\u2026what he needs. Sometimes that is really, really HARD! These are not easy kids and it seems like the entire world expects you to suddenly be fluent in Dutch, understand each and every nuance and inflection of your child and their particular dialect. Your little Dutch child will bring out the best of you but some days\u2026hell, some weeks and months, it\u2019s radically trying. You are now expected to be the expert on Holland and you just got here yourself! What if you give a specialist the wrong directions? What if you lead your innocent, trusting child into harm\u2019s way just because you make one little, tiny error in judgment?<\/p>\n

Finally, you will get pretty comfortable with each other. You play with your Dutch child in your small apartment in Amsterdam. You walk the streets, his warm hand resting in yours.<\/p>\n

Holland is beautiful, once you know your way around.<\/p>\n

But then your travel agent messes you up again: your tickets to Italy get straightened out. And just when you\u2019ve gotten Holland figured out\u2026your Dutch visa expires. Now, you\u2019ve got to move to Italy. With your Dutch child.<\/p>\n

School. Friends. The school bus. Life.<\/p>\n

True, you already know how to speak Italian. But your child, well, he just figured out how to negotiate the swing set in the backyard.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s immersion time. He\u2019s got to get fluent in Italian\u2026fast. Your child, this child who thinks in Dutch, this child for whom Italian will always be a second language, will now be a stumbling foreigner among a country of natives.\u00a0 Every child with special needs has to learn how to negotiate their way around Rome.<\/p>\n

This will be time that you just want an Italian kid. You\u2019ll hate yourself but you\u2019ll wish you had landed in Italy. You would never want a different kid but you will wish for a different version of your kid. Same girl or boy, but easy and smooth, casually strolling the streets of Italy. No matter that your child is one of the most amazing people you\u2019ve ever met. He\u2019s still an outsider and it is agony to watch. You can almost glimpse your beloved baby, free, liberated of all his misfires, social faux pas and eruptions of despair. A child that doesn\u2019t cause your gut to twist as you watch him try to make a friend, your muscles tense and straining as you prevent yourself from running up to the other child to explain that \u201che\u2019s just learning Italian,\u201d stopping yourself from begging that sophisticated little boy or girl to just give him a chance.<\/p>\n

But you\u2019re in Italy now. Big, sprawling Italy. And as nice as Italians are, you are going to quickly come to grips with the fact that they are going to occasionally look down on you and your child. You\u2019ll be misunderstood. Those weird foreigners, they\u2019ll think. But that\u2019s okay. Because those people, those ones that look down on you and your child for not being native Italians, well, screw \u2019em, because they\u2019ve never once taken a trip outside of their country.<\/p>\n

But someday they will. Someday, they\u2019ll step on a train heading for Happy-Retirement-in-Rome and end up in Husband\u2019s-Got-Alzheimer\u2019s Turkey. Or perhaps they\u2019ll go to Venice for a trip and get hijacked and taken to Daughter-With-A-Drug-Problem Chechnya. They might never make it to Holland but trust me; God levels the playing field.<\/p>\n

So, you\u2019ve made it to Italy. You know your way around, your child is happy but you know you will never call Italy \u201chome.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve become too sophisticated to ever settle down. You\u2019ve seen too much, learned about so many other ways of life. You are bilingual, understanding the trials and problems of displaced, re-routed outsiders. You may still feel alone but you are not.<\/p>\n

Congratulations. You are now a citizen of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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