I often find myself wondering how much I should push Lily with extra therapies, new skills, and new equipment versus how much I should step back and let her simply enjoy being a kid. I want to help her grow stronger and gain more independence, but not in a way that makes her everyday life miserable. Lately, this challenge has been front and center in my mind.

A summer of (too many) big ideas

At the beginning of the summer, I was flush with ideas for all of the fabulous things we could do for Lily during the break. It is the first time we have experienced a summer break for one of our children, and I had GRAND ideas for how much we could accomplish.

Constraint therapy! Aqua therapy! Hippotherapy! Supplemental physical therapy! Ordering her first wheelchair! Getting twister cables for her AFOs! Starting her in the Special Olympics program! Attending our first Regional Spina Bifida Convention! Miracle League Baseball! Not to mention play dates, birthday parties & other fun summer activities.

There must be a tiny overambitious elf living in the back of my head egging me on. When coming up with that list, I conveniently overlooked that (1) my husband and I are not on summer break – we still have full time jobs, (2) we don’t have a caregiver or local family we can ask to handle appointments for us, (3) we are hosting out of town guests during 3 of these summer weeks, and (4) our kids needs down time.

That list = Out. Of. Control.

Taking a step back

We started the summer with 3 weeks of super intense constraint therapy. About 2 weeks in, we were already burned out. I had to take a step back and reevaluate, and decided it was time to practice the “just push the peanut forward” method! Our summer ended up looking more like this.

Happening this summer:

• Constraint therapy
• Ordering first wheelchair
• Twister cables for AFOs
• Regional Spina Bifida Conference

Postponed until fall:

• Aqua therapy (August start, 6 weeks only)
• Supplemental physical therapy (evaluation complete; Aug-Sept start)
• Consider signing up for Special Olympics program

Postponed until next spring/summer:

• Hippotherapy
• Miracle League Baseball

Ahh…. that feels more reasonable. What’s funny is that the summer has still felt incredibly busy, even with that much shorter list.

How do you manage your summers?