Boredom Busters (Probably will only work for me)

5 things I'm allowed to do when I "don't have anything better to do."

-Practice drawing with 5 Pencil Method Classes

-Study Tagalog with my Rosetta Stone software (my brother, Brian, is on a mission in the Phillipines and I want to be fluent by the time he gets home.)

-Write to Brian and/or compile care packages to send him

-Work on my Etsy store (I'll post more about this as it materializes.)

-Read the book club book for the month

These are things that I always enjoy doing but are also working toward minor goals. It's meant to be a line of defense between me and some of my old bad habits that might keep me from finding time for my "Duhs."

"Duhs"

I've made a lot of lists in the past few weeks. Making lists helps me cut down on stress because if I have something important to do, but don't write it down, it plays in may head repeated until I do. Worse than having Rebecca Black's "Friday" stuck in your head. To help me hone in on what's most important, I've been making even more extensive lists than usual so I have less things floating around my brain and distracting me. Shopping Lists, Wish Lists, To-Do Lists, To-Don't Lists, etc. All kind of like Dumbledore's Pensieve. Once I get something out of my brain, it's easier to decipher and deal with.

One of my lists ended up with the title "Duhs" at the top of it. This was a list of things that I should be doing regularly (if not every day). The list includes but is not limited to:
Mommy/Son therapy time
Mommy/Son snuggle/giggle time
Mommy cooking practice
Exercise
Weekday Cleaning Schedule

The list doesn't actually contain that many lofty goals if I were to really focus on what's most important and not let bad habits and laziness run my life. Some of the items I'm already good at and some I'm not. Some of them are really vital and others could be skipped, but I'm learning that I'd rather not suffer the consequences that come from letting them go completely.

FlyBaby

Lately I've been working on refocusing my energies on my family and our house. I still need to be able to take time and recharge my own batteries and cultivate some "non-essential" talents. But I'm trying to go about daily life more on purpose than I used to. Basically I was miserable for about two months after we got Alexander's diagnosis. Then I realized that a lot of my old habits just aren't sustainable amidst these new challenges (ex. sitting on facebook for extended periods of time does not give me a boost of energy or help me feel motivated to "get back to the day." It sucks me in and I'm lucky if I resurface before the boys have added 25 more things to my cleaning list.) I simply have to grow or I'm going to be crushed by the onslaught of "stuff I have to do" and suffocated by my own feelings and reactions. This does not mean that all of the sudden, two weeks ago, I became a perfect, glorified being. Everybody else, even Kevin, may not have noticed that big a difference in me from February to March. But I've noticed a difference. I'm not "happier than I've ever been" but I'm definitely happier than I was a month ago.

I signed up at FlyLady.net and diligently implemented the first two baby steps (Shine Your Sink and Dress to Shoes). Since then I haven't even visited the site again but I also haven't needed to. I have NOT kept my sink shiny-clean the way she says to but I have embraced the Getting Dressed to Shoes concept. It really is just like she says, I think twice before laying down for a snooze on the couch if I have my lace up shoes on. And I don't have any excuse for not going outside to play with the kids, or running to the store, or walking the trash can to the curb. Once again, people may not notice a difference when they come to my house in the level of its cleanliness, but I feel like there's a difference. I've gotten several Spring Cleaning/Organization projects done and I really feel like I owe it to my shoes. The dishes and laundry still pile up a bit but I feel slightly more empowered to handle it. And let me just tell you, spiders don't give me quite the same panic attack when I'm wearing my sneaks.

There's also a different mindset that comes with getting fully dressed as if I was really going to work (teeth brushed, makeup and deodorant on, the whole nine yards). I get in a groove, I put on my Hilary Weeks or Josh Groban Pandora station. I'm better at plowing through the chores and minutia and just getting it over with instead of letting it take up the whole day. This obviously leaves more time for other more pleasant endeavors. I've played outside with my kids more in the past couple of weeks than I ever have before. The early arrival of Spring, I'm sure, has also contributed to this development, but I'm just more motivated in myself than I've been in a while.

I guess you could say I look at all of this as evolution. My to-do lists have changed, my goals have changed, even my prayers have changed. They kind of just had to. And I'm grateful for the grace I know I've been given. I couldn't have gotten even to this point on my own.

"I ain't as good as I'm gonna get, but I'm better than I used to be."

Katie Beckett Continued

**The following post is documentation of a personal experience with applying for the Katie Beckett Deeming Waiver in the State of Georgia, Barrow County. This information is given only as an example and is in no way a guarantee of like experience. The author is not a representative of the State of GA, Barrow County, or DFCS. The forms and procedures listed can (and probably will) go out of date without any note on this blog.**

Since I wrote last it has been approximately 45 days. This was the turn-around-time estimate given to me by my DFCS caseworker. Sure enough, I received Alexander's letter of APPROVAL (yay!) yesterday via certified mail. My caseworker also called me with the good news. So now that I'm personally out of those particular woods (my to-do list actually just got bigger, not smaller, with this new development) I wanted to update my Katie Beckett (Deeming Waiver) Checklist. So I did that but now here is the rundown of the experiences that helped me remember what I didn't include before.

- I can't believe I forgot to include the Psychological Eval in my checklist AND in my packet! This would be the report you received/will receive when you got/get a diagnosis of Autism from your (insert specialist here: we used a Neurodevelopmental Pediatrician). I worked for months to get the diagnosis and waited with bated breath to receive the report and then when it came time to hand in Alexander's Katie Beckett packet, I left the thing out. But it obviously wasn't the end of the world. Even my caseworker forgot to include a request for it in his first round of "you left this out." So I got a call from him a few days later asking for it. I pointed out that he hadn't made any note about it being missing on my Verification Checklist and he apologized and said he'd be sending me a new Verification Checklist. (Which he did.)

- Realizing the above oversight also reminded me that I didn't really go over the fact that you can't just go to a regular pediatrician to get an Autism diagnosis. In my experience, there wasn't a single person (doctor, therapist, special ed teacher, etc.) who would even say the word Autism in my presence without me bringing it up first. And then they would either say they didn't think he had Autism (which I believe was their honest opinion) or explain that they didn't have the authority to make that call (in which case I wondered if that meant they thought he might have it). This is because of mal-practice lawsuits. The people around you are protecting their butts by not expressing opinions about what your child "has." You can't really hold this against them with the way lawsuits work today (I mean, even I felt compelled to write a disclaimer at the top of these checklist posts), but the knowledge you should take from this is as follows: Find yourself a Neurodevelopmental Pediatrician, Developmental Pediatrician, or Developmental Psychologist. These are the people who CAN make that call. (There may be other specialties that also have that "power" but I don't know what they are.)

- Somehow, I really don't know how (I was reeeeally OCD about this paperwork, so I totally don't get it), I missed a signature line on the Level of Care Statement before I sent it in. This meant that a couple weeks later I received a Technical Denial of Services. (ack!) A Technical Denial means just that, a technicality is holding up the proceedings and you won't be able to get approved until it's fixed. This letter came via certified mail with a photo-copy of my filled-out Level of Care Statement for me to sign and return. Really not a big deal but I actually almost missed picking the letter up at the post office before it was returned to the sender. See, you have to sign for certified mail and apparently I didn't hear the door both days they tried to deliver it, hence a trip to the post office. So, I guess there are two lessons here -

#1) Have a buddy (a fresh set of eyes) look over the paperwork before you send it in to make sure you dotted all the i's and stuff.

#2) When your waiting for your Deeming Waiver Determination, assume that all certified letters coming in the mail are probably going to be about that! I totally thought the certified letter was something for my husband and when he didn't seem to know what it was, I figured it wasn't very important and decided to not stress myself out about going to retrieve it from the post office - ! Man, I can be a ditz sometimes.