Phew...a long week behind us.

As planned, Keith worked an abundance of hours this week at Achieve:

• Monday: 7:00 am to 9:00 pm
• Tuesday: 7:00 am to 9:30 pm
• Wednesday: 11 am to 9:15 pm
• Thursday: 7:00 am to 9:30 pm
• Friday: (only) 12:00 pm to 9:00 pm

That is over 22 hours of "time and a half". Combined with the anticipated additional hours at the beginning of this coming week, we essentially will have obtained the funding we need to purchase our dining set for the morning room (which wasn't budgeted when looking for a home, because we only thought we would need one dining set instead of two).

Now, the big "glitch" in Keith working long hours is what happens with Austin. There is no one to watch him in the mornings (the people we usually use to help watch him are at work or school in the mornings). So, Keith kept him at work...and things went even better than had been expected.

The key to the whole week was the help of our dearest friend, Joelle. She works at Achieve, and loves Austin so much...she was so awesome!! On Monday and Tuesday, Keith went to Achieve at 7:00, Joelle at 8:00 and Austin at 9:00 (Christine dropped him off on her way to work). Joelle would arrive to work and do as much work as possible to be ready for when Austin arrived. Once he was there, he received her undivided (with the exception of a few phone calls) love and attention until his nap, usually at around 10:00. Then, when he awoke at around 11:30, she went back to playing surrogate parent until Christine arrived at lunch time. Thanks Joelle, Austin was so much happier for having your love throughout the week (not to mention the weeks and months previous to this one).

Wednesday, Keith didn't have to work until 11:00 am, but Austin doesn't usually awake from his nap until 11:30, so the boys went into Achieve to hang out and play at 9:00...this allowed Austin to go down for his nap whenever he wanted to without disrupting his schedule. He went down from 10:00 until 11:30, woke up and played on the mat in the treatment room until Christine arrived at lunch time. She had re-arranged her schedule (double booking part of her morning) to finish her work day at 12:00...so Austin got to go home earlier than usual.

Thursday was expected to be the most difficult day. Austin was to be dropped off by Christine at 9:00. Keith had patients and Joelle is only at Achieve for 2 hours, so she had a lot of work to do prior to leaving at 11:00 am. Would Austin be happy playing on the floor independently in the treatment area, even with Keith walking around the room (tempting Austin to cry out to be held)? How would Austin do before his afternoon nap after Christine had left to go back to school after lunch? Well....our boy was fantastic! In the morning he played on the mat and smiled and engaged all of the patients in the room. After lunch, he stayed on the mat for another 20 minutes prior to fussing. Keith couldn't have been more pleased with Austin's temperament throughout the day, scooped him up and placed him (happily) in the Baby Bjorn carrier. Until his nap time, Austin stayed with Keith while he stretched, massaged and consulted with patients.

And then there was Friday....Christine had the day off!!!

So...all in all, despite being a very busy week, we were able to keep Austin on schedule, and he remained happy and well-tempered throughout. We are very lucky to have such an awesome little boy!