When we landed after the traumatic flight, Monster was VERY happy to see Mr. He tried to run the entire way to baggage claim; I tried to prevent this since I was hobbling with a bad back.
He ran right into Mr.'s arms and I went to find the luggage while Mr. tried to get Monster to drink some water (flying is so dehydrating, isn't it?). Ok, got luggage, found car (where the 4 legged monster was waiting for us, I missed that mutt!). It's after midnight, local time, but internally for Monster and I it's just past 9:00, near his bedtime but not really past it. Monster had a tough time settling down, but eventually went to sleep.
Unfortunately, the next few days weren't that much fun for Monster and I know it pushed him to the limits of his control. All-in-all, he did great. Saturday was our first full day in Rhode Island and Monster was in a strange place-that luckily had a pool. We got up, went out for coffee and a trip to Whole Foods for Monster's food followed by a drive around the island that was to be our new home. It was very hot, very humid. I was having flashbacks to that first miserable summer I spent in Pittsburgh before graduate school (not a pleasant memory for me).
The Island is quite beautiful. We chose this place because of the wonderful things we had heard about the school district in addition to the attraction of living in a small town where people would be able to really get to know us, and Monster. One of the more difficult things for a family dealing with Autism is the isolation. Even though we lived in a fairly populous place, Bay area of California, it was very difficult to really get to know people. We learned fairly early on after Monster's diagnosis that his behavior deteriorates when I spent long hours away from home, so free time wasn't available to follow outside interests. Because Mr was the stay at home parent, it was harder to connect with other families-there is still a large prejudice against stay at home dads-more so than there is against women in engineering these days. Our main circle of friends (our wonderful, caring, supportive, funny circle of friends) were families with children who had special needs. Which, on the one hand, is great because they understand you, what's going on with you, and to some extent your child (no awkward explanations, no weird staring, no uncomfortable silences as someone tries to figure out if you are someone to be pitied or just a bad parent). On the other hand, they have the same restrictions (or the same type of restrictions) on time, money and finding a baby-sitter, so nights out without the kids were few and far between and nearly always filled with discussions on our fight against the District or State.
This isolation is why we, foolishly or not (only time will tell), chose to move somewhere where there was a tradition of, if not acceptance and tolerance, but of knowing your neighbors. The kids we hope to run into at the playground, should be the same ones he will go to school with. His education will no longer be segregated to a campus where he won't meet neuro-typical peers, etc. etc. etc. etc.
Sorry for the side trip, back to the move story.
The first day we visited the Island, Monster was already at his limit-we had gone to the store (his least favorite place) and denied him his DVD player (we don't allow it in the car except on long trips because he tends to fixate and not notice anything else around him)-maybe we were wrong, who knows. We parked to drop off flowers for someone who had helped us look for a place. He didn't like sitting around while we spoke to folks at the real estate office (which was fun because not only were they all really nice, let 4-legged monster into the office with us, but one was the PTO president of what will be Monster's new school), he didn't like sitting around while Mr and I got something to eat. After all, he was having fun at a playground before we dragged him to lunch. He also wanted to go to the library for his daily DVD checkout (which we couldn't do since we didn't have a card or any proof we lived in RI) and he managed to delete his Go! Diego, Go! episodes off his iPod (a truly useful device). Eventually, we got him back to the hotel where he was able to swim before we went out in search of dinner.
Oops-Monster just got back from playing outside (I know I haven't mentioned it, but our new house has a swing attached to a tree outside and Monster adores playing outside there). I'll finish up more later.
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