Day 4: A new season in motherhood (part 1)

4 years ago, Philip and I started a journey together. He was not developing as he should so we went through a series of evaluations and determined that he has autism spectrum disorder. And so began speech therapy, occupational therapy and ABA therapy.

Since about 2 years old, Philip has had the equivalent of a 40 hour work week to work on things that didn't come easy to him. He had a team of experts regularly evaluating him and there were oh, so many meetings.

This year, he started kindergarten. He's done amazing.

A few months ago, after school some moms had a post-school impromptu play date at the park. Philip and I had time and could go. I watched him run around with friends and I got a little choked up inside. There wasn't a therapist there. I wasn't worried that he would run away or hit anyone. I didn't have to explain and apologize to the other moms why he was different.

Last week, I sat down with Philip's therapy team and they recommended that we exit therapy on his birthday, at the end of April. We've talked about eventually fading therapy before. But this is imminent. they are writing a report to the insurance company and saying -- there is nothing to work on. Philip can fully function in his 5 year old world.

It was a my first glimpse of a new world. Life without therapy.

For the last 4 years, therapy has dominated my life as a mother.

Getting evaluations done,
re-organizing my afternoon so someone could come and observe one of my children,
afternoons filled with therapists coming in and out of the house,
often as late as 8pm, making sure I had the right toys and materials to support therapeutic goals;

I had resigned myself that therapy was a part of life for us.

But, I am now starting to imagine a life without therapy.

We still have a ways to go -- Andrew would likely be next, then Eddie, and lastly, hopefully, Miles.
But this experience with Philip shows me that there is a point where it does end, where we can go back to just being us.

It is liberating. And terrifying.

For 4 years, my parenting has been under a microscope.
For 4 years, there has been someone to ask when I didn't know what to do to help my children reach the next step.

And one day, suddenly, it will just be quiet.

My mind weighs the pluses and minuses. I think about the challenges ahead for Philip -- sarcasm, jokes, bullies, organization skills, managing a world full of inputs and expectations -- all the things that kids (and adults) on the spectrum struggle with. I also think about all the wonders -- the time to pursue interests, to live without pre-defined goals for who he should become and how he should turn out, freedom to be a kid and play.

As a mom, this is a new journey for me, with Philip, that will start after Lent. And part of this Lent is preparing myself for life after therapy.

But for today, I celebrate Philip...