{this is more for me…I don’t write a journal, it’s all here, you can just skip this post unless you really care about boredom}

Moving sucks. We all know that.  I really didn’t want to move here, but I really felt strongly that we should go. That something important was going to happen here.

I was right.

Things have been so good. Casey started the school year off in a way never seen before. I thought it was going to be awful. Combine a move across the country with a new home, a new school etc with an autistic child and you’re really asking for some trouble. But there hasn’t been. This is because of the staff at his school. Casey’s special needs teacher is amazing. Truly amazing. She’s so open and willing to try things with Casey, to push him even when he gets mad at her. His regular education teacher (that’s RIGHT! He’s going to a REGULAR classroom for most of the day!) is SO good with him and the other special needs kids in his classroom. He welcomes them. Casey’s kindergarten teacher (for the two weeks he was in there) acted like having him in there was such a burden. Casey’s teacher sees it completely opposite.  Both of his teachers know Casey is smart and want so badly to get it out. There have been several days that I’ve walked home from dropping him off with tears of gratitude running down my face. He still has his rough patches. Lance has been gone this week on a business trip in Rhode Island, so it threw Casey sort of off. But his “off” now is nothing like his “normal” was before. He’s doing SO good. 

We found out yesterday that Abby qualifies for a respite care waiver.  We don’t know yet how much we’ll get, but the lady down the street who has a daughter with Down syndrome (that’s right…down the street! And she’s FANTASTIC. She’s helped me so much with finding resources out here) gets over 30 hours A WEEK in respite care. I don’t need that much (she says she doesn’t use anywhere near that much either), but how awesome is that? I hope that there isn’t some crazy loophole that makes it so we don’t get it. The guy I spoke to on the phone really knew his stuff and said he was sure we would just based on her diagnosis. They’re also going to evaluate Casey to see if he qualifies for some of their services. This same waiver will also pay for a lot of Abby’s medical costs. For reals, yo. It also might pay for respite care for both me and Lance to get away. Dates. That’s been a HUGE part of our budget in the last couple of years (the percentage of parents with children with autism who get divorced is staggering (not Down syndrome, in fact, parents of kids with Ds tend to stay married more than the average population)) so it’s always been a priority for us. Plus, I really like Lance. Going out with him is fun. Mostly.

Abby’s getting braces for her ankles tomorrow. She’s really starting to get strong, is army crawling all over the place and is starting to pull herself up on things. Her ankles need more support and her feet pronate way out, so this should help a bunch.

Carter and Peyton are also doing really well. There aren’t many days that I don’t think to myself SEVERAL times, “What would I do without Carter?” He’s just good to the marrow of his bones. He’s the one that gets us out the door in the morning. I’m constantly making him run up and down the stairs to get shoes, socks, etc. He never complains.

About that, anyways. He came home every day and complained about his “word sort” homework. Then, when Peyton started bringing home word sort stuff, Peyton started saying the same things Carter did. Carter saw what his complaining had done and completely quit doing it.

First Day of School

Lance likes his job. He gets to hang out with some of the big guys in the weapons industry. Contracts, engineering and whatnot. He’d have to tell you about it.
I’m doing okay. I miss my stupid friends. A lot. Tonight when my eyebrow started to swell up from a bug bite (not cancer) I thought about what I would have to do if I had a serious emergency. I don’t have a husband here, a car (it’s back in the shop…for reals...), and guh. It would suck! The neighbors are awesome though, and I know I’d be taken care of.  I miss Heather stopping by at the most random times to go out to lunch or just to talk or to clean my house. Or coming home to find that Erin (and others) had broken into my house to play pranks on me. I miss having my babysitter right next door. I miss all the freaking love we got in our ward. But that’s all to be expected. Our ward here is really really awesome. They have a huge turnover because everyone is like us, just coming out for 6 months to a year. They had the ladies in Relief Society stand up who had moved in since June and, no joke, it was almost HALF of the women in there.  That being the case, everyone is super motivated to get to know everyone else. I’m going to make them play hockey. Oh yes. There will be hockey.

Turns out, I’m OLD. Most of the kids in the ward are just that. KIDS. I’m OLD. When did I get OLD?! I’m not so much old as that I have OLD kids. That’s what happens when you have three by 23.

Abby is a rockstar in the ward and everywhere else. We went to the Nickelodeon Day of Play in D.C. and when we went into the Special Olympics booth it was seriously like the paparatzi (sp? My firefox browser isn’t working and I can’t spell for crap) came out. There must have been 10 people with cameras out taking pictures of her and then handing her around to get pictures with her. It was really cute. Mostly. They kind of ignored Casey, and that made me super sad. He’s the one who REALLY needs people to love him. Abby just loves no matter what.

This was with the Power Ranger at the Day of Play. I almost had to murder three moms to get this crappy picture.  THAT is a picture of the crowd. Not much playing done in here. It was right before that new boy band came on. I can’t remember their name but their show sucks. It’s nowhere near as good as Icarly.

Surprisingly, I freaked out a lot more about the crowd than Casey did. He got seven tiny but free soccer balls and he was set for the day.

Anyways. It’s been good. I’m happy that we’re here. It’s already been a life changing experience, and we’ve only been here a couple of weeks.