Summer vacay. A time during which, in my youth, I would swim and play and ride my bike around town and just generally enjoy life. I have very fond memories of summer vacation from when I was a lad.
Now I'm an adult - a stay-at-home-dad (SAHD) no less, and summer vacay means twelve weeks at home with an autistic 7-year old daughter and a <1-year old son.
Autism.
If the economy were better I would go back to work and put the kids in day-care at least part of the time, but day-care for autistic kids is really hard to find and really expensive. Tack on the second kid and I need to pull down about $20,000 a year just to break even on full-time child-care. Here in Michigan there are doctoral grads working as assistant-managers at Best Buy, so with my paltry B.A., chances at employment that doesn't involve manual labor for $7/hr. on 2nd-3rd shift are slim.
So here I am.
The first week was really tough, but next week is a partial (the girl-child's birthday is on Friday and her mother is taking Thursday and Friday off) and there are rumors floating around that the kids are going to their maternal grandparents' for a week after that.
The next full week, then, will be in July. I can dig that.
*Cartoon ©Jeff Langcaon / Island Insights (Hawaii)
