It has been decided E-man will take a bus from his preschool class to therapy three times a week.
Oh lord help me.
I have never really wanted either of the boys to take the bus. Since they do not really answer questions I can't ask them how the ride went or you know, "did the bus driver seem drunk?" type of questions. Although my mother in law pointed out that E-man can't tell us what is happening at school either, so that line of thinking really is not very logical. For me worrying usually wins over logic (I am working on it though).
When we started preschool last year I was available to do all the driving. It was pretty simple because Little Buddy had therapy in home and preschool wasn't that far from our house. This year everybody is in a different town at different times of day. Preschool days I spend just over three hours in the car going back and forth.
To make it more complicated I started training to be a lactation consultant and in order to be certified you have to do so many hours of breast feeding education. Obviously when I'm driving all over town, getting training hours can be difficult.
Deciding that E-man would take the bus was really tough. I feel like I'm having to decide between what is good for my kids and what is good for my career.
To be honest it sucks.
I feel selfish about the decision. But at the same time I am pursuing a career opportunity that I am excited about and feel that I would be good at doing. There has to be a better balance between my mommy self and myself as an individual. Part of that will have to be accepting help where available and hoping E-man transitions well.
I did my homework on this option as well, I spoke to a few moms and the staff at the therapy school about the bus and got a lot of positive feedback. So that is where we are at as of right now, I turned in the paper work so in about two weeks he will start riding the bus. So I will have plenty of time to continue doubting myself.
In other news, I had a meeting with the staff at the therapy school and the subject of kindergarten came up. At this point E-man is minimally verbal, which for him means he uses words but they are almost always prompted. That will have an effect on what kind of placement will be available to him next year. The options as I understand them are 1) Regular Kindergarten placement most likely with an aide 2) Special Day Program 3) Homeschooling Program with a mix of therapy during the week. Our goal for E-man is to get him ready for option 1, which will include a serious push for more language from him. It can be hard though when it feels like the harder you push the more he resists. I really would rather he not go to a special day program, I have heard a lot of not so great things about them and I am not sure it would be appropriate for his needs. I can't completely rule it out until I have gone in to see it for myself, so that is the plan once the school district allows us to do that. Option 3 is interesting to me but I have to learn a little more about the programs in our area and how that would work for E-man and our schedule. So it's kind of a lot to process at the moment. Little Buddy is still chugging along doing therapy, no big changes in placement or IEP meetings to worry about until he turns 4 years old. We are also juggling the ever changing laws on what insurance covers, the state covers and the school district covers therapy-wise. Right now the state is covering co-pays which for each kid is $30, so $60 total per day. It's a long story but we will be paying our co-pays starting next year, it's just an extra headache figuring out what exactly each entity is doing or planning on doing, especially when they are not always clear on it themselves!
Anyway, that's our lives right now. It feels like a lot of juggling when you throw in trying to keep up on house chores and working out regularly. Honestly, there have been many days in the past few weeks I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water. So that is the reason for my hodge podge post today, I needed to get it out of my head. Blogging is almost like having a pensieve, though not as cool. Yes I just made a Harry Potter reference. You're welcome.
