It’s great that Jack has such a wonderful school and great staff around him.

Good luck with starting a coffee group. They’re wonderful to be in - when you find the right gathering of people. I say that because I left one group I just wasn’t comfortable in. I was in another but it was only short-term. I’m still looking though. I’ll find a group someday.

Congrats on your award. You certainly deserve it. Your blog was one of the first blogs I began reading on a regular basis and is a big favorite of mine. I always love your pictures and enjoy your honest look into life.

I am glad that you are looking into more support. I need to be doing the same. So often we get stuck in the process of doing everything ourselves. Every time we have tried for support we have been denied so I get so tired of it and I think I gave up. Maybe I should try again.

I love your idea of a coffee group. Joe and I facilitated a support group when Maizie was about three until she was about six. It was quite a great group. We ended it when we moved to NJ and did not start it up again when we moved back. In fact I did not tell many of the people that we even moved back. Yesterday I got a call from one of the old members and I was happy to hear from her but am certainly not sure about restarting a group at this time. I also do not want to become a support person for people to call all the time. (that sounds terrible) It does take a lot of energy. It is great for support but my only warning would be to set clear boundaries early on. Many parents will begin turning to you for endless support (usually via long telephone conversations). In some cases, this is great and in others it can become too much to handle as you are trying to find your very own support. I was bombarded often with phone calls from distraught parents. It became very time consuming and drained me of much needed energy I needed for my own family. I was not very good at setting boundaries, as you can tell.

So, if you keep that in mind and really think about how much support you personally want to dish out it could be a fantastic experience for you and your husband.

The other difficult challenge was that many parents could not find child care for the get togethers. We had the group chip in money and hired sitters and were able to get a school to let us use their facilities. But, getting all of the kids together was a huge challenge considering they were a group of very challenging children. If I had to do it over again I would not offer any child care and encourage people to find support from family or friends to watch their children when they attend. That will make it impossible for some to attend which is sad. But, running the whole child care aspect of it was very stressful for us considering some of the children had severe behavioral challenges.

I don’t want that to turn you off from doing it. It is a great experience. Just think it through and set the boundaries before you begin. That is what I wish I would have done differently.

B @ The Love Blog
iamlove.blogspot.com

So glad the school situation has been improving. Good luck with getting something sorted out for lunch times.

A snake - super scary. I’d be more scared of that than the RedBack we found. At least the pest control people can spray the house for spiders. Not much they can do about snakes.

And yikes! A snake? I really hope that thing just disappears for you very soon!

Yeah- I’d be freaking about the snake too.