Sara at Mum Turned Mom started a new linky where she will give you a prompt every week and you can link up a post inspired by her prompt. Every week I have wanted to take part but this pregnancy is really taking its toll on my blogging and my blogging time is interrupted by the need to sleep!
This week her prompt is the following…
This means I can write about Walt Disney World, we all know how much I love my happy place! So whilst I’m sitting here, not half asleep for the first time in months, I’m determined to join in.
After I was able to make my dream of getting married in Walt Disney World a reality, my next dream was to take my own child there to share the magic with them. With lots of saving and being very careful whilst I was on maternity leave, we had somehow managed to have enough money to make this dream a reality. A trip to Walt Disney World was book shortly after Ethan turned one.
It would mean that we would be taking Ethan to see Mickey just before he turned two and a half. We spent ages discussing our choice of taking him so young but decided that Ethan would be talking by then. This meant we could share moments with him and even if he couldn’t remember the trip we would be creating memories for our family.
When Ethan turned two the realisation of autism set in.
Our world turned upside down. I felt like I spent every waking moment watching my son, looking for his traits, convincing others of my realisation and approaching the health professionals for a diagnosis. Every conversation revolved around is he or isn’t he and it drove me insane!
Along with feeling like I was picking my son to bits the guilt started to set in. Why did I not notice sooner, how did I not notice sooner, I’m a terrible mother etc. Lets just say the year before Ethan’s official diagnosis was mentally draining.
Then our thoughts turned back to our planned trip to Walt Disney World. People thought we were insane for taking a two year old all that way, but a possibly autistic non-verbal two year old. What were we thinking!
We discussed cancelling our trip but decided that perhaps getting away from it all was much needed.
At that moment in time I can honestly say that our vacation was definitely a healing of the mind. We got to escape everything that was going at home and reconnect as a family. We got to enjoy our little boy for the person he is and not worry about autism. Even though he was, and still is non-verbal, we connected with him in so many ways on this trip. Amazing memories were made!
We have no regrets about taking him and we really hope that one day we will be able to visit again, this time as a family of four.
He looks in his element. I love the photos of him with mickey.
I’m so glad that you chose to go, you can see from the photos what a wonderful time you had. The pictures of Ethan looking at Mickey are particularly special. It must have a hard decision to take at the time. Sometimes simply being somewhere different is all we need to reconnect and recharge. I can’t wait to hear about plans for a return trip as a family of four x Thank you so much for linking to #ThePrompt x