Time Frames

A few days ago was the third anniversary of when E-man was diagnosed with autism. Two weeks before that was Little Buddy's third birthday. Three years ago we were overwhelmed. A second baby and autism! I look back now and realize how far we've come physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. 
Autism was the catalyst for us to get healthy, invest in our marriage even more deeply and rely on loved ones more than we had ever before.
Martin and I are going to be celebrating eight years of marriage soon. Eight years ago I couldn't have guessed we would be here, so far from where we grew up and raising two special needs children.
Of course there were and will continue to be bumps in the road. What has helped me immensely is deciding to throw out the mental timetable I had for certain things.
Hoping the boys would talk by the time they were a certain age, be fully potty trained by a certain date all puts added pressure on an already stressful situation. With three years under my belt, I now know we can have goals to work on but setting them in time frames that may be unrealistic is unfair to both us and our children. Don't get me wrong, they have both made tremendous progress with the help of therapy. My focus now is that we are consistent in working on goals so they will happen eventually, without  so much stressing on the "when". 

Throwing out the time frame also addresses the "I'll be happy when" syndrome. The "I'll  be happy when I weigh X", "I'll be happy when I make X amount of money", "I'll be happy when the Sharks finally win the Stanley Cup" type of thing. I've realized I'd rather be happy, grateful and amazed at my life now. 
Having goals is great, but at the expense of not being happy until they are accomplished? Not so great. 
So our little family will just keep plugging away at our goals, happy, proud and thankful for each other.
Why wait?