Hell yeah! We should all go check our mailboxes too! 
And whoever finds an unexpected check buys a round for the thread!
I feel like we’re finally catching a break.
We met today with a potential provider of ABA therapy for my son, happens to be right down the road from us. I will admit I was feeling like I was being dragged into this. My son’s Early Childhood Special Education teacher thinks my son would do better in the afternoon class since he is so verbal, so she suggested we schedule him for ABA in the mornings. Things were just happening so fast. There are pleeeenty of horror stories about ABA. My biggest fears were that my son would be thrust into this kind of sterile environment and forced to act more “neurotypical” and twenty years from now would make angry posts on reddit about how his parents never accepted him for who he is.
Well, this place totally won me over. The whole facility is clearly designed for the comfort of children. There’s a huge open playroom with several other kids, lots of toys, kids seem to be having a blast. Then I met our BCBA, Steve. Oh, Steve. Steve is a total behavioral science nerd and is fascinated with our son and really excited to work with him. He exudes enthusiasm.
We start talking about our son’s issues.
Everything we talked about, they had a plan. Toilet training, feeding, sharing and taking turns, mental flexibility, drinking from a cup, dressing and undressing himself, they even practice danger awareness which has been a real issue with my son.
My husband offhandedly (neutrally) mentioned eye-contact, Steve said, you know that’s not as important as many people think. I said that’s great to hear because two things we very firmly do not want addressed are eye contact or stimming. He said that fits in perfectly with their philosophy, they do not want to make him neurotypical, just make it easier to get by in the world as he is.
Progress notes get sent home every day. Periodically there are scheduled parent meetings and trainings. We are welcome to text Steve at any time.
They will feed him lunch and put him on the school bus in the afternoons. And… they have a toaster oven! And microwave! And air fryer! He won’t have to eat crackers all day.
I look at the staff, they almost all have psychology or child behavior backgrounds. This isn’t an ABA mill where people are just punching a time card. They are all super psyched to be here. And they freakin’ love my kid.
Transportation is in place. He gets dropped off around 4ish by the school bus at our house, and since we both work remote I don’t think we’ll need additional child care. All of the schedule changes are good ones - now that we don’t have to drive an hour round trip to get him to OT and PT in the afternoons, we’ll actually have more time to work.
Then there’s the final worry piece: Finances. They told us we would hit our out of pocket max next year, no surprise there. What WAS a surprise was realizing that now that we will no longer require daycare, paying the out of pocket max is cheaper than paying for daycare.
I just don’t know what to say. I feel so relieved I could cry. It feels like finally we can put down this burden of having to teach him everything all the time and not really knowing what we’re doing, like we finally actually have real support from a team that has a 360 degree view of our child’s needs. We don’t have to do it alone anymore.
He starts November 27th. He did NOT want to go home, but he seemed placated by the promise we can add it to his calendar.
That is excellent to hear! Best wishes for the time ahead. One question: what does ABA stand for? I’m not familiar with the acronym.
Applied Behavioral Analysis, currently the gold standard autism intervention. It typically ranges between 20-40 hours a week so it is very intensive and it’s not easy to get approved for ABA services, much less get in so soon, so we are lucky there as well.
ABA is controversial in the adult autism community. All I will say is that we talked to a lot of people, including several autistic people, clinical psychologists who were themselves autistic and who were experts in ABA research, to make our decision. The general consensus seemed to be, there is good ABA, there is unhelpful ABA, and there is bad ABA, it’s just a matter of finding the right place.
Danke!
The loneliest sheep in Britain has been rescued. Climbers were able to scale a cliff and bring it back to a good place to rest and recover. To those people, I say: Good for ewe!
Yay!
Excellent news!
Seeing my daughter this weekend in NYC, and I gotta tell ya… I used to be one of those “let’s put everything on the carry-on, save $50” types but today I just went ahead and placed everything on the check-in, and am walking through Midway carrying nothing but my overpriced bacon and egg sandwich, and it is GLORIOUS.
Wonderful! Hope you enjoy the trip!
This made me smile today:
My travel secret! I always checked everything except an oversized purse………I treat every flight as if I’m going to be stuck on a runway somewhere for 6 hours, so I always pack a wide variety of snacks. But it is liberating, even more if you have to change planes, and even more if you have a long layover.
And if you ever encounter a long flight delay, take a quick stroll past the lost luggage office before you wait at baggage claim. Sometimes your luggage will be luckier than you, and get there first. The airlines usually place unclaimed bags in a highly visible location near the luggage office.
In undergrad, I had to vacate my dorm by noon but my flight home didn’t leave until 6 p.m. So I checked in way early for my flight, and geeked out in the terminal with a science fiction novel (or two).
When I arrived at my home airport, my parents were waiting for me, and we walked to the baggage claim. Walking past the lost luggage office, I noticed that two of the bags looked a lot like mine. They had gone on an earlier flight and been sitting there for a few hours - which made it easy to get home early.
Though this was in the 80s - I thought the airlines had to take greater care these days that the luggage flies on the same plane as the passenger?
If the passenger changes their flight (or deboards for some reason) they are rigorous about the luggage getting taken off. If the passenger doesn’t change anything but the luggage ends up on a different flight, that’s less of a concern.
The singer Pink is giving away some banned books at her concerts. I’ve always had a good opinion of her, and this reinforces it.
And another item that I just read: “The US Army has overturned convictions of 110 black soldiers who were arrested after the 1917 Houston Riots.”
I had no opinion of Pink. Now I do. 
Many new species (Tree shrimp!) were found on this trip, as well as a sighting of a very rare animal. Hopefully, this spurs more efforts to save and protect them. However, the part about the leech they can keep. No thank you!
Update: it’s done. After a year of wait lists and bridge authorizations and fighting with insurance companies, the insurance company has officially declared my son eligible for autism services.
And some more good news from the insurance evaluation. My kid is a goddamn genius. We knew it, but it’s fun to have a report saying so. His visual/spatial skills are 98th percentile, and that was with him fighting the test.
The evaluator said she foresees a bright future for him as long as he gets intensive intervention now. And that in the future he probably won’t need as many supports. That’s the first time a professional has told us that, hey, the prognosis is good actually.
Congratulations!