Posts from — April 2010

My husband and I work full time.  Fortunately, we are blessed with a wonderful extended day program at our kids school, that they attend for about 90 minutes before school and about an hour afterwards.  They certainly seem to love it, anyway.

Thing is, we’ve come to realize that L is incredibly tightly wound – the poor kid’s on high alert at all times, especially when at school or extended day.  And the minute he gets home, there’s a good chance he’s going to blow out.

So starting today, we’re pulling both M and L out of daycare in the mornings, and on Monday/Tuesday afternoons.  That’s another 90 minutes a day (at least) that they get to chill in the comfort of their own home, and don’t have deal with tons of transitions (do you realize how many transitions occur during the school day – and even during a single hour of day care?  It’s a lot!).

Of course, me being me, I’m hoping that this change will solve all the world’s problems, and we can be a nice, normal family.  Of course, that’s not how it works.  Maybe we’ll see a dramatic change, but more likely, we won’t see anything – at least not in the short run.  But even so, it can only help our kids to spend more time relaxing, and less time performing.

Because for the first few years of their lives, relaxation was not an option.  And their little systems deserve a break.

Yesterday, we had what I’m calling a “not-quite-IEP” meeting for L, to deal with some of his behaviors.  The meeting included the school psychologist, his primary teacher, his resource teacher, his therapist and myself.

Over and over again, I was struck by how much this group LOVES my boy.  Their willingness to think outside the box, make sacrifices, answer every question I had, fill out assessments – just boggles my mind.

Because usually, when I hear about schools and special needs kids, I don’t hear good stuff.  I hear about resistance and battles, not participation and cooperation.

I left knowing we had a good plan in place that won’t just help manage L’s behaviors, but will him him heal.  I left knowing more information about my son, that will help us with him at home.

But mostly, I left grateful.  I love this school!

At last night’s therapy session, something became painfully clear – one of us needs to quit our full-time job if we are going to give L the best chance possible for healing.

!!!

We are both employed full time, in fairly well paying jobs.  And yet we live paycheck to paycheck.  I still don’t really know how that’s possible.  Maybe its the mortgage payment on the house we just bought.  Maybe its the grocery bill.  Maybe we just spend too much, I dunno.  But going without half our income is about as realistic as one of us going to the moon.

To make matters worse, the best person to be a stay at home parent is my husband – who of course, has the larger salary.  But it would be just as nuts to lose my salary.

Maybe there’s other options.  Maybe there’s county services we could take advantage of.  Maybe….

But right now, all I know is what our son needs – he needs a full-time parent.   And yet, I have no idea how to give it to him and still be able to take care of the rest of the family.

How on earth…

I know, its been awhile.  I had stopped blogging because things were going so “normal”, that I just didn’t have much to report.  But something changed this year.

I still don’t understand why it started – or if it was already there and I was just in denial – but L is in a world of pain. Angry, defiant, engaging in behavior that gets him in trouble at school, and worse yet, behavior that could get him seriously hurt or killed.

So we’re back in therapy.  This time, as an entire family.  We’re having to move beyond your standard behavior modification methods, and move into stuff that’s much harder, much more time consuming.  And, both my husband and I are having to look at our own responses, and how those responses help or hurt L.

Maybe I was naive, but I really thought that things would be hard for 6-12 months after placement.  To be two years into it, and in a lot of ways feel like we’re back at square one, is both heartbreaking and frustrating.  More often that I care to admit, I’ve wished L would just go away, so we could have a peaceful home again.  But he is ours, he is our son, and we will never give up.