Date Night

In my 8 months of experience as a (remote part of) California resident, I can say that I'm still not impressed with the services available for Playette and other children that stand to benefit from Early Intervention. As a matter of fact, earlier today, BD looked at a piece of paper I had brought home from Thursday morning's OT session and said, "Oh, that's nice. We've only been doing that for months already." Yeah, we pretty much teach the (free) therapists around these parts. Yes, yes, I know. You get what you pay for.

Funny how in VA, you got a lot more.

Anyway. I didn't start this post to bash CA (grr - maybe another day), but to say that they do have one thing I like. Respite Care. For us that means babysitting. We get a certain number of hours we can use each month to have someone come over and take care of the Littlest One while we either take care of things around the house or do like we're going tonight, go on a date.

This respite thing isn't completely easy though. Of course, you have to find someone you like. If you're a local, you have the option to have the Regional Center pay someone you know, which I think would be great if it were an option for us. But, since it's not, we had the trial and error approach. Luckily, we only had one error. She was a nice enough lady, I guess, but I couldn't get past the feeling that things were "not exactly where I left them" after she had been around. Plus, she didn't provide any feedback on how things had been while we were away - she'd just grab her stuff and high-tail it out the door. I didn't think that was too big of a expectation to want to know how the night went. Hmph. So, yeah, she was not requested again. She did fold baby clothes though. I liked that.[/something nice]

Come to think of it, she was our third pick. The first one was a no-show to our meet-and-greet and the second person quit the agency, I think.

It's all for the best though because now we have Ms. J (no, not that one). I really like her. She might be our age, but I haven't asked. Playette is always clean and fed and happy when we come home and I haven't noticed anything missing yet, not that I expect to. She takes care of our precious cargo and I hope she feels that we treat her accordingly. I'd love for her to stick around as long as we do here.

So, tonight we're traveling um, a little out of our way, to see Batman on IMAX. BD has seen it already, not that that means anything. I have to see it too (I guess). And, apparently, I have to see it BIG. You know, so I don't miss anything. I heard they serve good food at the theater so you know I'll survive.

And, oh yeah, my child eats paper. Like, loves the stuff. Like, I have to pry it from her fingers after she's crossed the room to get to it and then do a mouth sweep while she cries. How it's better than food, I'll never know. Maybe that's how Playette is maintaining her trim physique and I should take notes. Our directions to tonight's destination were her most recent snack.

As a final note, at this morning's strength training session, the Bootcamp instructor suggested to the class that we keep some Advil handy because we may be in that much pain tomorrow. If that sounds like fun to you, let me know...we're allowed to bring guests over the next few weeks.