{"id":18880,"date":"2021-10-25T12:05:30","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T16:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=18880"},"modified":"2021-10-25T18:20:03","modified_gmt":"2021-10-25T22:20:03","slug":"off-to-work-you-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2021\/10\/off-to-work-you-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Off to Work You Go"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dear Justin,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This past week we had your annual IEP meeting, held virtually due to, of course, Covid. I have a confession to make.<\/p>\n

I actually enjoy your IEP meetings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For many people IEP meetings are a contentious experience akin to root canal or a trip to the DMV, but for me dear boy, it’s mostly been a chance to hear in greater depth all the wonderful things you’re doing, and see how much your teachers care about you.<\/p>\n

It’s just a touch of a spa day for me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This year I had questions. I wanted to know if your monthly outings will resume soon (they will), if in-person BCBAs will be reinstated (they will too), but mostly I wanted to ask if you, my boy, could have a job.<\/p>\n

And the answer was a resounding yes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I’m not sure what it will entail. It could be folding pizza boxes. It could be wiping down equipment in a gym. It might even entail light office work (not sure what that is, but it sounds fun).<\/p>\n

I don’t really care what it is as long as you like it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In three years you graduate, and although I’m going to do my best to have you continue living your best life, I’m not sure I can pull off a job or volunteering for you. So knowing you’ll have this experience until you’re twenty-one means a lot to me.<\/p>\n

And I’m hoping it will mean a lot to you too.<\/p>\n

Who knows. Maybe within the space of a few months every member of the McCafferty clan will be working except your little brother (I’ll have to look into that).<\/p>\n

Perhaps you will go to an office, or a restaurant, or a gym and engage in an activity that will give you pride, or at least get you off-campus for a few hours, which I know you always think is fun.<\/p>\n

I hope you love what you do.<\/p>\n

I can’t wait to hear about it and see pictures. Know I will be rooting for you.<\/p>\n

So proud of you, my son.<\/p>\n

For more on my family visit my blog at autismmommytherapist.wordpress.com<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow me on Facebook at Autism Mommy-Therapist<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Justin, This past week we had your annual IEP meeting, held virtually due to, of course, Covid. I have a confession to make. I actually enjoy your IEP meetings. For many people IEP meetings are a contentious experience akin to root canal or a trip to the DMV, but for me dear boy, it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":18881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-brick","category-ocean-county"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Summer-2021-065-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-4Uw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}