I have been traveling a lot lately, to business meetings, conferences, even a Disney mom blogger cruise.  All of this travel would have never been possible for me a year ago, because the children were not in the place they are now.  They weren’t able to handle even a tiny change in routine, or handle Dad being the one in charge. Their autism ruled the house, ruled them, ruled every single thing we did.

Boy have times changed.

Even though this last weekend things seemed to get a little harder for everyone to manage, the fact that I’ve been gone every other week and the kids aren’t experiencing any major regression is a HUGE plus.  There was a time when we never thought we’d be able to go anywhere.  My husband and I felt like prisoners, unable to even go out for a night on our own.

I think of the many things that families who don’t deal with special needs children don’t understand, or perhaps even take for granted, is the fact that when it comes down to it, they have the option to go places and do things if they desire and work out the logisitcs.  They don’t have to figure out if their kids can handle them leaving and going to the store.  Leaving over night.  Leaving for a weekend.

It isn’t even a factor.

I’m glad it’s not a factor for them, I feel like this type of micro-managing of life can make you go a little crazy, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.  But it’s yet another piece to the larger pie that creates our lifestyle.

It’s a factor.

But we work hard on their progress, every day.  All day.  And now it’s ok for mom or dad to go away for a few days.  What a success!  Our next step is the kids themselves.  Getting them to handle going away themselves, without regression, without drama and without regret.

We aren’t there yet, but we will be.

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Arianne also blogs at To Think Is To Create

Tags: Autism, Blog, Disorders, Family, Family Resources, Health, Neurodevelopmental, parenting, special needs, Special Needs Children, Walt Disney Company

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 11:25 am and is filed under parent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.