Thursday, July 28, 2011

Summer is Not What it Use to Be

I love being home with my kiddos for the summer - it's a time for us to reconnect and to do the fun things like going to the beach, playing with our toys for hours on end, and our biggest decision is what are we going to have for lunch today.  In the past, there were times for me to craft and read for my own pleasure, while doing things with my kids.

Lately, with Little Man's diagnosis, our summer isn't so much as carefree as I would like it to be.  Our outings have to be cross checked with my Google Calendar to make sure I don't double book.  My leisure summer reading, has turned into reading about Childhood Apraxia of Speech or finding out new activities we can do to help Little Man come out of his shell a little more.  In my mother's guilt, I feel bad for Big Girl - she has to sit through or find ways to entertain herself during Little Man's therapy.  I have scheduled some summer recreation activities for her to partake in, but making sure we can get her there and pick her up is a whole other can of worms (thankfully I have a good friend willing to pick her up from Cheer Camp next week so I don't have to cancel therapy for LM).

Recently on an Apraxia board I follow - the discussion of how to do it all came up - the debate of the working mom vs. the SAHM mom and what works for each family.  It appears to me that many of the mothers are SAHMs, but then again, it is quite possible that the working mother doesn't have time to check or frequent these boards. ;)  They are super informative, however reading it all makes me overwhelmed...I go back to work in a month.  Big girl starts Kindergarten in a month.  I will be leaving my house at 7am and coming home at 4/4:30pm every day - throw in all these therapies and appointments - how are we going to manage?  Can I really sign Big Girl up for dance with all of these things going on?  With LM giving up his naps and starting daycare again where he is pretty much made to nap - how are we going to be able to get him asleep by 8pm so I can get some actual work and things around the house done?  Then I see the progress that LM has made in the month I've been home and I wonder - is it because I'm home and actively working on his communication skills he's made this progress?  Is it the Omega supplements I'm trying working?  Is it because he has more personal attention since he's not at daycare?  Or is it all starting to click for him because he's maturing?  I'm extremely grateful and thankful for his progress, but my fear is that it will slow down or he will regress when I go back to work.  When I say progress, I'm talking we have gone from 4 words/approximations to 12 words/approximations in roughly 6 weeks.  I'm glad where I have a job where I have my summers "off" (even though I had to say no to extra work and class opportunities to earn more credits).

Don't get me wrong - we have had fun this summer too - we've done our fair share of swimming (I can get over 50 approximations from LM in a 30 minute period when we're swimming in the pool!), visiting friends and family, going to the beach, etc...today was the first time in a long time where we just stayed home (after BG's yoga class) and played with our toys.  I guess in "growing up" and becoming a wife and a mother, I miss the time for myself.  I feel guilty taking that time for me - like I should be doing something else.  I definitely felt good last night going to my Aunt's house and having a few drinks - for 3 hours I didn't have to worry about putting kids to bed, researching more stuff on Apraxia, setting up LM's communication device/itouch, or reading books on how to help my child.  I just need to figure out how to do that more often. ;)

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