Mommy Lives in A Trailer With Soldiers

I was just surfing around and saw some blog talk about when and if to move for your deaf child to get better opportunities. Well our story is a bit odd.

When my son was born we lived in Los Angeles. My husband and I both worked in the film industry. That meant working long hours for ten months and two months off. The money was good and we had awesome benefits. I was able to travel for work and experience things I would never been able to if I worked in a normal job.

Along came a sweet baby boy. My husband stayed home and I worked. This was because I was on a television show which pretty much guaranteed a paycheck. There is a feeling in the business that you don't quit a job until you have a new one so five days a week I would head off for 16 hour days. I was so desperate to see my son my husband would drive an hour to the set often to bring him to me. Haddy loved it. I worked on a military show right next to the Power Ranger stage. Boy heaven. He could come play on the sets and eat off the craft service table.

He loved it but I hated the separation. We had a strong Deaf community and services at this point. Why move? Well, once at a party my son said, " My Mommy lives on a trailer with soldiers" *uh yea I know how that sounds*. This broke my heart. I was a costumer and worked off a trailer on location. The actors were in military clothes for the show. My work was a playgound for him but he had no sense of of me as the mother who lived at home because I got off work when he was asleep and went back before he woke up.

When I got pregnant a second time we decided to find a place to live where we could have normal jobs and I could be Haddy's education advocate. So we had done research about schools and programs. Of course Freemont was the goal. San Diego had an elementary bi/bi program that was awesome and Colorado and Riverside were on the list. We have family in Oregon and Washington so the two state schools were added.

First we visited each school. After each visit we looked into the job market for our unique skills. Nothing we saw would be a place where we could easily find work with film resumes. We would have to start over.

Freemont was great but the housing was too expensive if we didn't have work lined up. Colorado same thing. As we searched we found out we needed to rethink our lifestyle. No problem.

Then my husband's dad made an offer. He would hire him as a sales rep for his small brokerage. Bingo. We could move to Vancouver and Haddy would attend the state school. My husband would learn a new job skill. Our income would be 1/3 of what I was making but we would have dinner together every night and I could be the mom I needed to be. Haddy would have the enivorment we thought he needed,

So we jumped.

To be continued .....