Girl Heads to OT & My Salary Ain't Enough to Sacrifice my Kids

Girl, her best friend, S., and PC left for Michigan early this morning. Before all of that, however, she had a Girl & GR night last night with my mom. Mom picked her up from SmallBoy's OT session, so they both got to see what he does. When LargeBoy went, he was interested, but Girl, WOW - she was FLOORED. She went into his sessions and watched as SmallBoy slid down a zipline carrying one of those gigantic exercise balls between his knees until he reached a very specific point where he was to release it. She watched as he was squished under all of the cushions and marveled at how he begged to be squished over and over. She was enthralled with his journey through J's sensory tunnel, which is 3x longer than ours, and at how he was able to turn himself around within the tunnel. She watched him balance on top of an exercise ball, using his biceps to hold himself up while kicking away a ball that was swung at him on a bungee cord. She went into the other OT room (pictured) and checked out all of the equipment, saw what he does there, asked about each piece: what SmallBoy does with it, why he uses it, can she play with it? It was so exciting. It seems that each day, and with each new exposure to the World Of SmallBoy, Girl & LargeBoy understand SO much more about him.

Today, while Girl & PC are in Michigan, SmallBoy and Princess are taking a day at the zoo with Meem. He called me at work when he got up this morning to tell me how excited he was and that (are you sitting down?) he was going to make sure he got his chore du jour done right away. If that doesn't shock you enough, the chore was scooping the dog poop from the yard so that LargeBoy can mow today. Yeah. WOW! I know he'll have a great time at the zoo. Maybe the three of us - Mom & the Boys - can have a wall-sit contest tonight!

Ok, now it's time for bitching about the job again. I have said in previous posts that the company I work for deals with children with learning disorders to help to develop the sensory cognitive functioning necessary to gain the skills needed to process and use the information they are learning. Translated, we help kids learn to decode, read, comprehend, etc. To get the maximum benefit from our program, we like our students to work the program intensively, 5days a week for a half day. As you can imagine, our peak season is the summer, therefore, it is company policy that no one takes time off during the summer, to assure that all of our students receive the maximum instruction for which they registered. Unfortunately, this means, even though I'm a manager and not an instructor, I can't take a vacation with my family. Per my divorce agreement from Ex, neither of us may take the kids out of school for vacation - which means the only available time is Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring Break (and with kids in two different schools, Spring breaks usually don't coincide).

Are you screaming "THIS SUCKS!" as loudly as I am? Wait, it gets even MORE fun. One hears lots of tales of parents who never spend any time with their family because they're married to their job. Most often, those parents are bringing in six figure incomes. I'm not trying to justify the time away from their children, and in no way saying that money will take the place of family time. I'm trying to point out a huge disparity. My salary is not six figures. It's not even high five figures, not even middle of the road. I'm having a great deal of difficulty understanding how this company can justify paying their employees so little (ALL of their employees, including the semi-big wigs), yet asking them to sacrifice so much. We work on July 4 (for straight pay because our company deemed that July 4 is not a recognized holiday by our company)to benefit those who are trying to maximize their summer instruction (out of 30 students we usually end up with 2 on 7/4). In my office, I am the only employee with children. I am, therefore, the only employee with a child on the spectrum who doesn't always "get" why mom just can't go to the zoo with them.

Should it have surprised me, and unfortunately those fabulous people I love so dearly who live in my house, when I melted down yesterday at the fact that PC, Girl, & S. were going to Michigan today? Well, it did. And boy did I melt. Poor PC thought I was angry at him - probably because that's exactly how my words and tone of voice came out. I'm so sorry, My Love. I wasn't angry at any of them. I was heartbroken. Heartbroken because I couldn't do like PC & Largeboy and have some fun bonding time. Heartbroken because while they get to go off and do family things, I have to go to a job that pays me a ridiculously low amount of money, has cut off overtime, and expects me to not spend time with my children in the only time they have free.

I am THRILLED that PC is able to take the girls up there. I am ecstatic that we've been so lucky to have Michigan in our lives to escape to. I am overjoyed at the prospect that, perhaps, one day, my children will be bringing their children to this paradise. I know this all sounds trite and petty, but I really really really wanted some Mom/Girl time. She was gone for 2wks this summer with S., she'll be gone again next week with S (back to a different spot in Michigan), and then school starts. I'm trying to find time that we can get SmallBoy up there before it's too cold to go swimming in the lake - now that I've discovered that it's really really awesome. I'm trying to find time to take the kids up there as a FAMILY, even if it means I have to call in sick - but I can't.

Oh good grief, I am whining SO. I'll leave you be. If you have any ideas, other than find a new job, which I've been trying to do since last year, I'm more than open to suggestion. Am I being too selfish? SmallBoy keeps asking when he gets to go. They get home tomorrow night, probably 9:30 or 10:00. I didn't sleep more than an hour last night (and of course it was an intermittent hour between when they left this morning and my alarm went off). I'm going home, feeding the boys, taking a shower, and going to bed.