We recently returned home after being "on the road" for about ten days. We visited family and friends back on the East Coast and it was a great trip. Going to Maryland, we did it in one day - it takes about 10 hours. Coming back home, we stopped in Cleveland for the night. It's nice to break up the trip a bit, since it's only about 3 1/2 hours back to our house. I'm glad that we have our minivan (especially on long trips), because it gives us lots of space. We have over 150,000 miles on it, but it keeps on going!! Whenever we travel, the first thing we do when we get back home is unpack the car. Since we were traveling for over a week, our minivan was packed with stuff. It took a little while to unload everything. The hubby is very predictable after a trip, he will take his suitcase upstairs, unpack it all, and then announce to me that he is already unpacked. This time, Lauren also unpacked her suitcase quickly, I think because she didn't have many clean clothes left and she was hoping the "laundry staff" would do a few loads. A few hours after we got home, Lauren and I went to church and then headed to Kroger to get some essentials, like milk. We got home and then the hubby needed to run a errand. We had dinner in shifts, the kids first and then the hubby and I later. On the Monday that we returned, the hubby went back to work, Lauren had an appointment and Dominic had music therapy. On Tuesday, Dominic went back to summer school. The rest of that week was jam packed and we all had multiple things going on every day. I, like the hubby, am also predictable after a trip. I NEVER unpack my suitcase as soon as we get home. It typically takes me the better part of a week to fully unpack. Sometimes the suitcase makes it upstairs to my room, sometimes it spends a few days in the middle of the living room floor. I think it's actually easier to keep it there, because it's only about 25 feet from the washer and dryer. Why take all the dirty clothes upstairs, just to bring them back down to wash them?!?!?! Yesterday, neither kid had anything going on all day - the first time since we've been back from our vacation. The two of them just "chilled" all day - I think they were both completely exhausted. I was telling the hubby that coming back from a vacation is kind of like "re-entering" the earth's atmosphere - sometimes it can be a bit of a "rough" landing! You go from not really having a schedule or a routine to having one again. How about you? how long does it take until you and your family are back to your routines after a vacation?? A few days? a week?? longer??
When Dominic was diagnosed with Autism at 2 1/2, I went to our local library and took out every book I could find about Autism. Sometimes I would bring back 20 books. This was 2006, so a lot of the information was very "dated." I guess I was looking for a book that would tell me what I should do next, like a "manual." Autism doesn't quite work that way! The saying is, " if you know one person with Autism, you know one person with Autism." Every mom to an individual with Autism follows their own "path." I think as moms, we judge ourselves much harder than anyone else does. I was 41 when I had Dominic. Did he get the diagnosis of Autism because I was an older mom? because I drank a lot of pop? I could sit and think about that every minute of every day. I am pretty integrated into the Autism community around Lansing and have told more than one person that it took me about two weeks to come to terms with Dominic's diagnosis. It is so incredib...
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