I wonder this a lot. How will I know if I’m doing enough? How will I know if its the right thing? I know all neuro-typical Moms have the same feeling but in this case its different because I”m speaking for my son. I am his voice, his opinion, his fears and his choices until the day (hopefully) he can speak for himself. Lots of pressure right! Just keep on ‘keepin-on’……..
These days, Timothy is all about cats. We recently adopted one from the SPCA-kept the name they gave her- “Tinker”. She is his new favorite thing.
Onward we go..or back I should say to Spring of 2011. Young Tim was 3ish. I was still trying to juggle working weekends at my job-they didn’t always call;( It was about this time we took our first family vacation to Florida. Income tax returns helped us to afford this on a shoe-string budget and boy was it nice! A welcome break from the flood of appointments that had become our new ‘jobs’. Of course we couldn’t do the full Disney experience~ A) we couldn’t afford it and B)at this point Timothy was unpredictable and we had no idea how to manage him efficiently.
We ended up with me taking the older two girls to Magic Kingdom one day and the whole family to Gatorland another day. The house we rented had an awesome pool that we spent tons of time in!
This year brought a lot of changes. I had to bite the bullet and try to find childcare for Timothy so I could work during the week. We couldn’t make it on our current income even with me staying home during the week and taking in other children. The search was on! Our caseworker recommended several facilities in the area but many of them couldn’t accomodate a shift workers schedule. I was having a hard time with his diagnosis, how would I ever find someone to take him? To me, it was a hard sell. I felt like giving up. Then one day while looking through Kijiji ads, I found Michelle. She lived just down our street which would be uber convenient. We set up a time to meet and off I went. My nervousness must have been palpable. I began my sales pitch ready to hear rejection…………..but it never came!
“Sure, I will give him a try” she said. WHAT! I think I cried with relief all the way home. I mean, NOW I know that the good outweighs the bad with Timothy(most of the time) but at the time things were tough for us. We had little supports with exception of my mother in law so really there was never a break.
M turned out to be a godsend. Nothing is perfect, but the arrangement we have is pretty close. We need her at 6 am or 6 pm she is there. She is understanding and best of all ACCEPTING. Timothy is treated as everyone else ( maybe even a favorite
) My son had found his first friend!
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