(This post was originally written February 4th)

This week was really a test for me and my family. We were literally going a hundred different directions each day with this new schedule of ours. Let’s start with my hubby. This semester he has class from 8:00AM to 1:00PM on Monday’s, Wednesday’s and Friday’s, he works after his school day is over on Monday until about 6:00PM & has Wednesday and Friday off from work to actually be a student. Oh did i mention he has night class Tuesdays & Thursdays from 6:00PM to 8:00PM after his full work day of 6:00AM to 5:00PM? He also works on Saturday’s and Sunday’s from 6:00AM to 2:30PM.

My week isn’t much better. I’m off work Sunday’s and Monday’s. When i say “off” it’s more like i’m home with my 4 year old, 3 year old and 11 month old infant sons. I make sure my son David goes to preschool every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning from 8:30AM to 11:30AM and once he is out of school he is dropped off by the bus so that he can have ABA therapy for the rest of the afternoon. My Tuesdays and Thursdays are filled by dropping off both David and my oldest son, Christian at preschool together. David has ABA therapy all day both days. I head off to work from 8:30AM to 5:00PM and back to the school i go to pick up the boys. My infant son, Ricky is at home with grandma and grandpa. Somewhere in there i have to figure in breakfast, lunch, dinner (trying to go GFCFSF), cleaning the house (with products that won’t make my family itch to death or make eczema flare up), laundry (with soap that’s homemade & hypoallergenic), baths for the boys (mild soaps – that won’t cause skin irritation or make eczema flare up), and sleeping. Ha! what’s sleeping?!

This week I had a series of appointments set with Kaiser for David and Ricky. Wednesday afternoon was an appointment for David with the Allergist, Thursday afternoon with the ENT, Friday morning for Ricky with Audiology & Friday afternoon for David with Dermatology. Phew! I’m glad that’s over. $120.00 in co pays later i pretty much discovered that the doctors were telling me the same things. The synopsis of each of these appointments was, “You are really well informed” and “Your children are very lucky to have you.”

I suppose it was nice to hear that i’m an amazing mother, i’m well informed, i’m on the right track, and i’m doing what is recommended and then some for my boys. I guess i was caught off guard. It’s amazing to me that i got more information from other Autism moms and support groups then from the experts. I’ve had more friends tell my what to look into and what to stay away from then the doctors have told me. Who are the professionals around here?

I’m just trying to balance everything but i’m noticing that this is really hard. That’s not even mentioning the recent blow that CVRC gave me on January 30th – that’s another blog post to come.