How Did I Get Here?

The boys and I are on our own again this week. NSSD is in Nashville on business. Now, it is a well-documented fact that I am a big old neurotic scaredy-cat who should never be left home alone at night. Every night, no matter how exhausted I am and how much I swear to myself that tonight I will be going to bed early, it is practically unheard of for me to hit the hay before midnight when I am alone. Oh, I will start off to bed at 10, but somehow what with all of the checking and rechecking of doors and windows, even getting back out of bed once or twice to make sure I didn't leave my house keys hanging in the front door, pretty soon 10 turns into 12 and there I am still being creeped-out by the overzealous motion detector light on our back porch and repositioning the phone on my nightstand to be within an easy arms reach.

Just before he left, NSSD, in all earnestness, asked me if I ever wondered to myself how we ended up here. (What? You mean crammed into an 1100 sq. ft. house not far from one of the scariest neighborhoods in one of the most crime-infested cities, an hour and a half commute from your office? You mean that?) It is funny that he brought it up as if he had just thought of it, when it is in fact a dialogue we have probably had 50 times in the past year. I know how we got here, and it actually made sense at the time. What I don't know, and am wondering now, is what are we still doing here?

We have been incredibly fortunate this year to have happened to be where we are, just half a mile from what has turned out to be an excellent school for Bear. But know, as we are nearing his next IEP, which will decide his fate for next year, it is looking more and more like we are about to be stuck paying for a year of private preschool in order to avoid pushing him into kindergarten before he is ready - a preschool that is a half-hour away. So once again I am asking myself "what are we still doing here?" and I guess the answer is we just don't know what else to do.