It's a lot of work taking care of your average toddler. It's even more when that toddler needs to be cathed every three hours, have their food blended, have their g-tube accessed more than a dozen times a day for food/water/medicine, have their feet stretched for twenty minutes three times a day, be put into a stander and entertained for an hour, helped with practicing PT/OT/eating/drinking skills daily, and taxied to 2-8 appointments per week. Somewhere in all that, there's still homeschooling, laundry, cleaning, shopping, errands, and other typical tasks that come with parenting, managing a home, and living. For two years everyone has been pitching in to get as much done as we can, and we manage to keep up with the most important stuff while adding in the less essential stuff when we can. But as Evanna gets older, she's becoming more like a typical toddler who can destroy a room before you can blink or drive you batty changing their mind about which activity they are willing to do for five minutes in their chair at the table.
In an effort to maintain our own health, get more of her stuff done, and catch up on school that has been put on a lukewarm back-burner, we applied for personal care services through DDA. They approved 71 hours a month. This week, we will be meeting someone who may be providing 40 of those hours for us. I'm both anxious about having someone in my home regularly caring for MY child while I'm working with Maddie and Josh and anxious for having help, getting caught up, and being a little less overwhelmed.
