Refugee, Part 2 (The Promised Land)

We had made up our minds that the area we had lived in for almost 12 years was not going to be a right fit for Livie. Now came the epiphany that we had about 4 months to find a new house, prepare and sell our old house, pack and move!

We made about a half dozen weekend excursions to Monmouth from before Memorial day until just after the 4th of July. After a dozen or two views, we kinda settled on a slightly smaller house in favor or a fantastic location, on a cul-de-sac with a family with four kids across the way! Even better, 4 of the 5 schools our kids would be attending were less than 1/2 mile from the house; that compared to 15-45 minute bus rides at the old house. I suffer the greatest with the commute, anywhere from 55 minutes if there is absolutely no traffic, upwards from 1.5 hours all the way up to the current record of 3.5 hours when a major artery is closed.

Meanwhile, we interviewed a couple of real estate agents. The first one, I wish I could have recorded! Your typical upper-middle age real estate with an aversion to germs. We found this out when she came to the door and I announced to her that we had a cold going through the house. Actually, it was Strep, I think. Me with my best Eddie, from the National Lampoon Vacation series saying "Yea, she's got a lip fungus they haven't quite identified yet." Her hands shot up like a surgeon who had just sterilized, she would touch NOTHING! She walked around the house like this sterile surgeon, not touching a single surface, she made ME open all the doors! I think she went through a half bottle of Purel. Clearly she wasn't a match for our 'infestation'.

The next lady was quite nice, smaller agency, but she seemed like she could sell. Before we signed though, Linda remembered a fleeting comment one of our ABA therapists had made. She had loved our new addition (my new addition, I LOVED my new addition ) and had said "let me know if you ever want to sell." As those who go through early intervention with therapists coming into your house, you get to know each others' lives pretty well, and we weren't sure if her and her husband were ready for the financial burden of a house yet. Long story short, we asked and she lept at the chance. What friggin' luck! Selling our house with no agent, no commission, sight, all-too-often seen!

OK easy part done now comes the NIGHTMARE! A house full of stuff accumulated over 10+ years. We are NOT organized, we hadn't intended to move not 3 months ago. We had recently expanded the house and commensurately the junk had grown (clutter is organic and expands as does other things in our household as I have previously explained). We had begun to clean up in anticipation of trying to sell, but now it was a full scale emergency.

We rented a self store, filled that up in a heartbeat, got a 20 foot dumpster, had to jump on that the night before to get more stuff in. Remember, through this Late July through August, Linda STILL has and infant, a pretty hectic 20 hour a week ABA habit, and three other kids to boot! I'm taking days off when I can, but I'm saving most of my time for the big move. We hired movers and had them help us pack. Registering for school, getting closings ready, major project going live on Jan 1 for me at work. Our lives were this cyclone of MADNESS!

The day of the actual move was the zenith of the craziness. More like, it was the spot on the roller coater where you finally hit bottom and you are just deciding that this was about twice as fast as you wanted to go...but there ain't no going back now. The movers were late and kinda underestimated the time needed to pack up the vans and get down there (I'm STILL packing stuff while their moving boxes etc out). Luckily we did not have to have the place completely
The caravan gets down to the new home around dusk. I can remember making snap decisions about where things should go, no tools to remove doors, something about not being able to move our fridge into the kitchen, vague memories about being talked into having the vast majority of the boxes loaded into the two car garage (note, the garage is STILL half full with boxes nearly TWO years later!). I just wanted it done, and the movers out of my new house and new life.
We survived that day, night and most of the ones since. Liv did have some pretty major regressions over the months before, during and after the move. The other kids have learned to adjust. Aly, in particular is slow to warm up to people and make friends. She had a few friends in Sussex Co; now she had to start all over again. When her one friend here moved away recently, both she and we were heartbroken. Dillan and Jason now have four boys to play with in the family across the street, another just a fence jump away. I envy the endless summers they are having and will enjoy in the future; they have the run of the cul de sac, a football sized playground from our backyard across the cul de sac into their backyard.

Well, there it is. I cannot do it justice, the absolute insanity of that summer; but here we are with twice as much as we could ever dreamed of as far a services for Liv compared to our old house. For that, I'll never regret the move...

Refugee, Part 1 (Oppression that drove us from our 'country')

I was inspired by the Mother'sVox post AUTISM MIGRATIONS to recount my exodus from the oppressive, conservative-minded viewpoints of the northernmost part of the NJ to the more centerist leanings (more leftist in its taxation and spending of revenues) of of my new home in Monmouth County NJ. I gauged it out, and it looks like I can have a blockbuster and a sequel. There's just too much to cover on one post.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. We had a house that we adored and a 40 minute commute I loved. It was 'God's Country' up in the northwest corner of the state. We had been working for the past 10 months with early intervention for our daughter who had been diagnosed autistic just under a year ago. We had a very good team for Livie; but it was to be swept away at the age of 3.

Our first meeting with the township social worker was not exactly reassuring. He had reluctantly confided in us that this was his first transition from an early intervention into a preschool setting for an autistic child. Great, maybe we mold this township into a model of autistic services (no, really, I wasn't being sarcastic at the TIME!). We had done our homework finding various districts who we agreed with their processes. We were mostly looking for the Verbal Behavior method of ABA and had about 5 schools within a 45 minute radius that we wanted to look at and another 5 we had as a backup to appease the budget gods in the town before we backed them into a corner and forced into our way of thinking.

We gave the social worker the list, all ten. He said he would contact them and see if we can arrange a look-see at them. He got back to us about a week later with a much MUCH shorter list. This one was not accepting any new ones, that one we couldn't get etc etc. We were down to 4...ALL from our 'backup' list. We dutifully went through three of those and had one that had basically 'play therapy and one that focused on the Miller method. Neither was even close to what we were looking/hoping for (preference was for a Carbone-type ABA).

The one we finally chose was the Miller location. It was a 35-45 minute bus ride for Liv, but the people seemed genuine, the parental support seemed OK and the program somewhat promising. We signed on the dotted line.

We got out of the IEP with decision in hand, we were somewhat celebrating, my mother-in-law was watching the kids, we went out to lunch. We had navigated the IEP process and we had Liv enrolled in a school. We talked positively about the outcome through lunch, mostly the ins and outs of the meeting itself. We left the restaurant and headed down the highway toward home. I had an overwhelming sense of impending, not doom, but mediocrity. I finally said "We settled, didn't we.... remember all the things we wanted? Remember the schools and the ideas we REALLY wanted? Remember the schools that we were going to look at 'just for comparison'? Well, those were the schools we were CHOOSING from."

"Where can we go though?" Linda said in desperate realization.

We had paperwork upon paperwork on autism, and we were accumulating a large 'Favorites' folders of things to read on the internet whenever we had the chance. One of the things we had was a COSAC of NJ list of recommended schools. Great little piece of info telling what method each school system followed. Linda was browsing through this list and asked me how far down Monmouth County was. I cringed, most of my experiences with Monmouth were in the southern half and my commute would have been a minimum of an hour and a half. "They follow CARBONE in this town!" she sad excitedly. So, I looked up the town, just to appease her, she knew the outer limits of commute time would have been an hour (no traffic). Luckily, it was in the northern part of the county, just under an hour commute with a tailwind, if no traffic, and if no state troopers!

We began looking to fit this very large square peg into the small round 'holes' of houses in the neighborhoods serviced by this school.

OK, good breaking point. Stay tuned for Exodus II- The Search for Services coming to a blog near you ....