I’m a big proponent of educational stops for kids as part of their lives – not everything you hit on a vacation (or staycation) should be an amusement park. One of the benefits to living in a bigger city, though, is having a bevy of educational options that can also fun and stay fresh…
So in that light, the weekend before last, we decided to take in the Maryland Science Center. Continue reading
Is any childhood visit to a beach community with a boardwalk really complete without a trip to an amusement pier?
When I was a child, we used to take a week in the summer and head down to The Wildwoods, and at some point during that week, we’d end up at Mariner’s Landing to go ride the rides. Now that I’m grown up, and my kids are old enough for at least some of the things that are offered on the piers, it was time to let them get the same experience, albeit removed twenty-something years from my own. Continue reading
We don’t usually do family vacations.
As a lot of families with Autism know, vacations can be a recipe for disaster – the lack of structure, the unfamiliar environments, the missing preferred foods and sounds… and in our case, especially, I tend to spend more nights on overnight trips in the minivan with the Monster, than I do enjoying the bed I’m paying for.
At some point, though, you just have to bite the bullet and take a trip. Continue reading
So as followers of my Instagram feed (or those who noticed the pictures on the Facebook page) will know, my family and I decamped from Charm City for a week for a vacation down the Shore.
Yes, I say “down the Shore”. (My wife’s the “down the ocean” or “downy Ocean” person.) Don’t look at me like that.
My mother very generously arranged for a rental house in Wildwood, New Jersey for a week, so that my siblings could come with their families (as appropriate). So a little more than a week ago, our cars converged on a nice little house a block off the boards, and we spent seven days away from it all before the new school year. Continue reading
Every summer, my company finds something for us to do with our families. For several years in a row, it was the company picnic at a local swimming club, but… then we grew a lot. So it got moved, first to Six Flags America (see On the Road – Six Flags America), and then the last two years have been at Hersheypark. (Given where the staff at our company live, it just makes more sense to have it north of the office than south.) Continue reading
I’m only home for a short bit between trips – the wife and I returned from the Dominican Republic last night, and I’m off to Minnesota today for the weekend – so I’ll keep it a little bit short and sweet.
I’ve mentioned in another post that we have a communication log for when the Monster’s at school. Our communication system isn’t fantastic when it comes to how we handle things when we’re not around at home… Continue reading
The wife and I are actually going on vacation soon.
I’ve commented before that it’s important to find time as a couple to actually be a couple – we spend so much time (especially at this time of year, with IEP meetings and placement discussions) doing things for the kids that it’s easy to go for days without acting like there was a time where we were young and in love and actually married…
And in the time since the last time we got away, we’ve forgotten what an undertaking it is. Continue reading
I’ve been keeping a low profile while juggling work and the Monster’s spring break, to be honest.
School vacations are always hard. It’s not just that the Monster has a disruption to his regular schedule, but that there’s a problem with finding something for him to be doing to keep him either from falling into bad habits, or the danger that with me having to work – even with my ability to work from home at times – that we’ll not pay enough attention and he’ll regress even more than he has during this year, not just academically but socially.
Full disclosure: This post has nothing to do with Autism, for once. 🙂
I will say here what the #1 lesson is from my dads’ support group, as I’ve said many times before – you have to take “you” time now and again, as the parent of a special-needs child, or you’re going to go insane.
I posted on Friday that the wife and I were going to Pittsburgh for the weekend. We’re back, safely, from our visit to Steel City, having brought the Ravens good luck in their AFC Wild Card game. (In fairness… the Ravens have yet to lose when I’m in attendance, so there. :p) The kids seem to have had a fantastic time with their aunt, uncle and cousin, who were kind enough to come watch them so the wife and I could get away. Continue reading
We ended up with some pretty nice weather this weekend, so it was an occasion for us to actually make something of our copious unstructured time and find some… structure.
To be fair, this hasn’t generally been a problem for us this vacation – the Monster’s been at “School Day Out” at the JCC for two of the three weekdays that we’ve been off (they weren’t holding it on Christmas), and he’ll be at it for most of this coming week as well (again, closed on New Year’s Day). But it’s something to do, and we have the membership to the zoo anyway, so… off we went. Continue reading