I know I’ve whined enough about money this week, so. 😉
One of the things we had considered putting in our LISS request (the one that’s seemingly not going to be approved anyway) was for respite care. We’ve never actually taken respite before, but… well, it comes back to the question about getting a break for ourselves.
The ARC offers “Parents’ Day Out” now and again, which is a lovely relief for a few hours every quarter – they take the Monster (and R too, when he’s a little bit older) and it offers us the opportunity to have enough time to go grab a bite to eat without having to restrict ourselves to “family fare” or worrying about a potential meltdown in a restaurant. Two of the last three occasions, we’ve managed to go to a nice Cuban place and Bahama Breeze (the latter chosen since we were time-restricted, as I was coming from gabbai’ing at shul, which is what the third of those occasions was also used to cover). But… that’s four hours every quarter, as opposed to something that would afford us more “couple-time”.
And that’s part of the problem. As I’ve mentioned in prior posts, the wife and I haven’t actually had a “vacation” since who knows when – we take the kids with us when we travel, most of the time, and it’s often been a trial. There’s something about how we travel that sends the Monster either into meltdowns or middle-of-the-night hyperactivity, which usually means that one (or both) of us goes without sleep. That, in turn, limits what we really can do – I’m somewhat reluctant to go on a “big” vacation if I can’t depend on everyone being nicely rested and getting the most out of the trip.
So we’re still thinking about respite care, because we do need to get at least a night or two away, without overburdening family with the kids. The wife’s been researching folks who could fit the bill, and we’re maybe – maybe – going to actually see about getting away on a trip at some point, if only just to get some “us” time. Our biggest stumbling block, at the moment, is figuring out the other side of the equation: balancing the Monster’s need to be here for the school bus during the year with when we think we can sneak away.