I’m fortunate enough to work for a large company that has one of the biggest, rarest perks in the business world – a paid sabbatical program.  Once every five years, I get a four-week paid sabbatical from the office (besides all of my copious PTO)… and my fifth year anniversary with my company passed in November.  It’s time for me to take the break.

My wife and I are planning for an actual “adults” vacation – we’re going away without the kids.My in-laws aren’t really willing to watch the kids for the week that we’re planning to be away, so this means that in addition to planning the vacation itself, we have to hire a sitter.

I suspect that this would be a far easier prospect if the Monster didn’t have Autism – we could just peruse the listings on Care.com or Sittercity and select a reasonably good candidate from the many listings there.  Of course, though, reality is different, and we need someone with experience with children like the Monster to keep an eye on him.  It’s not that hard of a job, due to timing.  The Monster has camp every week day – he’s gone 8 AM to 5 PM – and R has camp two mornings per week.  This narrows the pool of available applicants down significantly.

(Of course, if the Monster did not have Autism, we’d probably be planning a vacation with the children.  We’d be like everyone else, and figuring out somewhere we could go – maybe a Beaches resort, or Orlando – where we could get the sun and relaxation that I want, while still also having the option of a night or two out for ‘us time’.  The real issue, honestly, is that the kids can’t be depended upon to settle down at night and get some rest, and I’m unwilling to spend the money and time to go on ‘vacation’ and not rest…)

We’ve been going through the list slowly, and we’re not having a lot of luck.  Our first attempt at a hire was certainly well qualified, but decided that she did not want to have the job after having come over.   We’re waiting now to hear back from the second of the interviews we’ve conducted – a young woman who is studying music therapy, and whose mother is an SLP that my wife’s at least heard of in the community – but I have to admit that I’m somewhat concerned  that this girl is going to say no as well, and we’ll have to keep scrambling for another option.

On a positive note, we’ve been approved for a little bit of financial respite support to help defray the cost of hiring someone to watch the kids – it’s not a lot, but it’s better than nothing, and it certainly makes the cost of a week-long sitter more affordable.

Hopefully, in a few days, I’ll be able to report that we’ve everything planned for our escape…