Monday, June 5, 2017

A Week in the Life of a Special-Needs Mom

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Last week was a fairly typical week, albeit a bit less busy then usual. Here's how it went down:

Monday
  • Sent emails to writing/editing clients, my accountant, and a social worker who’s trying to help my family get funding for a 1:1 aide for my son at school
  • Picked up kiddo 15 minutes early from school so that I could take him to physiotherapy
  • While in the PT waiting room, watched kiddo play really well with a little girl of maybe 4 years old whom we often see there. He pushed a small ride-on car/walker while she pulled it; he pushed it while she sat on it; she got off and opened the lid of the seat, and he giggled. She opened the lid again, and he giggled some more. It was lovely to see
  • During the PT session, watched as the physiotherapist asked kiddo to catch a ball (with assistance) and throw it, while standing either on small blocks or inside a plastic therapy ring of about a foot in diameter. Felt amused when kiddo bent down and pulled the ring up to his waist as if it was a hula hoop
  • As we were leaving, got asked a question by a girl of maybe 9 or 10 years old, who I think was asking why my son wears leg braces (visible that day since he was wearing shorts). I wasn't quite sure that's what she said since she was speaking in Dutch, so I just said, "I'm sorry, I don't understand Dutch very well"

Tuesday
  • After dropping kiddo off at school, had an impromptu coffee with a fellow mom of a kid with special needs who's in my son's class
  • In the afternoon, enjoyed chatting with other moms at school pick-up
  • After school, went to the pharmacy to drop off (1) a prescription for eye patches for kiddo and (2) old prescription bottles, and then went to the grocery store
  • While running errands, got an email response from a special-needs school in the U.S. that I recently contacted. They gave me helpful information about their application process and (usually non-existent!) wait list

Wednesday
  • After dropping kiddo off at school, stayed nearby and drank coffee and worked. I did some work work, but I also worked on creating new picture cards to use with kiddo for the Picture Exchange Communication System, which we've begun implementing at home and at school:

  • After we got home from school, kiddo handed me his jacket, which means he wants to go outside, so we took a nice walk around town
  • After we got home, we played together with his toy police station, which he likes so much that he doesn't know he's not only playing but also working on his fine-motor skills. Sneaky, sneaky


  • In the evening, watched a couple episodes of "Love" on Netflix with hubby

Thursday
  • Did more online research on potential towns to move to in 2018 (I wrote more about that here)
  • Thought about attending a coffee meetup; took a nap on the couch instead
  • After waking up, freaked out a little about not having gotten much done in the morning, so went on a house-cleaning frenzy before leaving to pick kiddo up from school
  • Right after I picked up kiddo, he very much wanted to walk north, and I very much wanted to walk south, toward home. I started walking away from him to see if he'd follow me, but nope. Finally, it dawned on me that maybe he was wanting to go to the playground north of school. "Oh, do you want to go to the playground?" I asked. "Yeah," he said, and so we went
  • Had a small incident at the playground where kiddo wanted to push the spinny bicycle thingy backwards while other kids wanted to pedal it forwards (similar to a previous incident), but otherwise we had a decent time
Kiddo pushing the spinny bicycle thingy
  • Went to the pharmacy to pick up kiddo's eye patches, and then to the grocery store 
  • While running errands, kiddo fell asleep in his stroller, so I took that as an opportunity to go shirt shopping for myself. I've decided I could use some flow-y shirts: They're more flattering over my belly these days, which has gotten bigger on account of stress-induced (or, shall I say, stress-augmented) sugar cravings
  • In the evening, did some work work

Friday
  • Paid a speech therapy bill and submitted a request for reimbursement to my health insurance company
  • Did some work work
  • Had a Skype call with my mom. Kiddo was in a giggly mood during the call and ran around like crazy into and out of my mom's view, which she found highly entertaining
  • Bought a cheap desk mat, which I later used to create a PECS communication board to hang on our wall:
  • Felt happy and mildly surprised that I could remember all the way back to Monday