February 17, 2013

Carter's Story Part 5: The Big Move

Part 1          Part 2          Part 3          Part 4

After weighing things out, and exhausting all possible scenarios (and ourselves in the process), my husband and I came to a decision. We had to try to somehow make it work for Carter to attend the private school we'd found for him in the greater Toronto area. We did not want to look back in five, six...ten years and say, "If only we had..."


And that's why, just over fifteen months ago, our family moved from our home town, the area where my husband and I grew up, where our family and friends live, where my husband's business is located, to a place an hour and a half away, on the other side of Toronto.

Some might say that it was drastic to move away from all that we know and love, and from our family's main source of income. Maybe that's true, but we felt we had to give it a shot.

We've lived here, in our new location, for just over a year and Carter has been attending his new school for that long as well. He even attended during the summer months.

Is the situation ideal? As ideal as it can be. Five days a week my husband commutes back and forth across Toronto for work, to and from the place we used to call home. What should normally take an hour and a half can often turn into a three hour drive (or longer), depending on traffic. Enough said.

Has Carter found success at his new school? So far, yes (thank goodness!). And he is being challenged academically while receiving support with his talker.

I got tired of the "Not I" response that I received when asking who would help Carter, but I didn't know where to turn for support. So, my husband and I took things into our own hands to try and solve the problem ourselves.

We continue to watch with excitement as Carter's communication skills develop. A natural goofball, Carter's sense of humour has blossomed with his new found capability to speak more freely with his talker. He tells jokes, gets into potty humour with his brother and sister (underwear anyone?) and he loves to comment and contribute to conversations as best as he can. There's still a lot he needs to learn in terms of language skills but he's proven his capability for learning and I'm confident he'll continue to make progress now that he is in a supportive school environment.

In the meantime, Carter is likely to be found with his younger brother and sister doing one of his many favourite things, like splashing in the pool in the summer, downhill skiing in the winter, perusing books, playing cars or hanging out with his partner in crime, Bentley (service dog extraordinaire).

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