I
openly admit it…I don’t like change. In
fact, I don’t know many people that do!
But, it is a daily fact of life that I have had to find a way to deal
with. One of the ever-changing things in
my life has been my career. If you’ve
read my book (Come on, just read Becoming Mrs. Rogers ) then you are
aware of some of the facts surrounding these changes.
To
sum it up, I spent 20+ years as an Executive Assistant working for high-powered
corporate gurus, wearing suits and panty hose in the Monday through Friday,
8:00-5:00 grind, while, my husband, Chris, spent more than 30 years honing his
skills as a commercial plumber. Then, in
2009, together, we formed our own commercial plumbing subcontract company. It’s a complicated title that really means we
do all of the plumbing for a General Contractor, specifically on commercial
jobs like restaurants and new commercial buildings.
Not
that it’s terribly interesting, but just to provide a bit of background…..We’ve
had the privilege of working for one specific General Contractor that, in the
past, did a lot of the building for new McDonald’s Restaurants. This allowed us to hire a few employees, and
work at a steady pace for several years.
It wasn’t hard for me to move from Executive Assistant to Bookkeeper, as
they are quite similar! It did take me
some time to understand all of the details surrounding plumbing, although I had
been married to Chris for 25 years at the time, and knew a lot of the lingo and
could identify parts, etc. Around the
middle of 2014, though, McDonald’s nearly ceased building any new restaurants
due to the flux of business capital (money).
This sent a wave of changes coming our way.
We
have been somewhat used to change since the birth of our two sons, who were
born with a (SURPRISE!) genetic cognitive disability called Fragile X
Syndrome. We knew nothing about it until
we got the news when our oldest was two-and-a-half and our youngest was a mere
newborn (again, read the book—it’s a detailed account of these awesome guys). This is the kind of unexpected change that
rocked our world! In hindsight, it kind
of seems petty to even blog about a job change with all of this uncertainty
going on, right? Well, hang on….this is
relevant.
So,
last fall, Chris and I discussed it, and we decided to take a leap of faith and
pursue work on Love’s Truck Stops with this loyal contractor since the future
of McDonald’s and our bread and butter, were gone. What does this mean? Well, if you’ve done any traveling, you
realize that Love’s Truck Stops are built on major interstates, miles
apart! It’s good work, but it would
require Chris to travel in order to do the plumbing on this kind of job. We had a company meeting, over a nice dinner
(you can do this when you own your own business), and decided that I would
become a Plumber. I had little
experience, but I was willing to learn, AND I slept with the boss, which was an
added bonus. I had a base of knowledge,
but Chris had 30 years on me. Also, the
fact that he is not the most patient teacher would require us both to adjust.
We
did a few smaller jobs near home to fill the immediate void and bring me up to
speed, and then we took our first real contract on a Love’s away from home. Among the many benefits for our family is the
fact that we own a little RV named “Rocket”.
This makes traveling with two young adults with Fragile X Syndrome more
doable, but would still require me to be extra organized in order to make is
successful for them. “Rocket” has been a
God-send over the past many years as we’ve traveled to all of the lower 48
states for pleasure, visiting other families affected by fragile X syndrome
along the way! This kind of travel has
allowed us to meet the specific needs of our sons who need structure and
routine when exposed to any kind of transition.
Why not use it for yet another transition—that of work?
I
began the same way I had for any other transition for our sons, planning,
preparing and praying. I spent the week
before our departure planning a menu, and prepping meals for an estimated 14
days away. There is no way that I wanted
to work all day in the 100 degree heat then prepare a nice meal for our family.
So, I pre-cooked things like spaghetti sauce, beef stroganoff, taco meat,
enchiladas, grilled chicken and pulled pork to become major parts of
easy-to-assemble meals. Then, I packed
fixins’ for other meals such as crockpot lasagna, crockpot meatloaf and a tasty
dish I like to call crockpot green chili chicken rice, that I could easily
plunk into the crockpot in the morning and we could eat later that evening. I like the idea of using the crockpot when
the weather is too hot to use the oven in “Rocket”. Now that the logistics of meals were complete,
I focused on preparing the guys for a whole new routine. This was also going to be a big change in their lives.
Jake
and Joe really live the very best life when we can provide a structured
schedule during their day, including recreation, and/or work. They both hold very good jobs in our home
neighborhood, but we had to think about how they could be happy AND productive
while our own work required us to leave home.
I also wanted to find even small things that we could do to continue to
make their world bigger and allow them to experience new things. This has
always been a goal we lived by. So! How could
we do this?
I
pulled out my trusty library of picture symbols that were the language of our
sons. With a very limited vocabulary
from a very young age, we have learned to communicate with them via a complex mixture
of pictures that tell a story called ‘pic sims’. This story would at least give the guys a
daily idea of what we were doing, how long it would last, and what was next—all
important things for them. Then, Chris,
my amazing husband, and I talked about how we could make our sons’ lives
quality while we worked. Afterall, we
would be taking them away from their own daily jobs and plunking them into our
work life. As with any trip we’ve taken
in “Rocket”, we did some research to find out what would be in the area of our
short-term community. One thing we
learned very quickly is that Love’s Truck Stops are often built near very small
towns in order to make their presence more viable. What this meant for us is that there was not
much around to entertain us while we worked.
We had to figure this out. I
gleaned some help from my past methods and approaches, especially for our
sons.
The dog, Lulu, and the guys all loaded into “Rocket”, I drove our truck
and towed the trailer full of tools and supplies, and we hit the road on our first
adventure of working away from our home neighborhood. We decided to camp
nightly at the closest RV park in proximity to the job, which was 20 miles
away. To our pleasant discovery, this RV
park came complete with a full-sized drive-in movie! It also had its own homemade pizza and snow
cone stand! We took full advantage of
these amenities to help make life more tolerable during our 2-week stay, then
it was home for a few weeks, repack, and make our way to the next stop.
The
next town did not have a drive-in, but it did come complete with a really nice
city park that included a water feature!
We decided to make a plan to pack our lunch each day and take it to the
park. As is with any transition to a new
place, we anticipated our first day’s visit would be brief—only about 15 minutes. We developed a quick, albeit successful and complete
routine, for the park that included sit down and eat, play at the water park
(not get in) for a few minutes, then walk Lulu around the perimeter. Our past experience has always been that “the
third time’s the charm”, and this park visit was no exception. The second day we stayed for 30 minutes, then
the third day was a full hour. Other
than a bit of relaxation, we had no expectations.
Having
no expectations usually means that Chris and I are often surprised, and we
certainly were in this situation! We
used to visit parks often when our sons were younger, but had not made a habit
of visiting the jungle gyms of late. It
seemed they had both outgrown them. On
day number one, even at the age of 26, and being of limited motor skills, Jake,
wanted to go down one of the little slides that were fairly easy to access. I stayed back and just observed while he
approached, climbed the steps and went down, all the while bearing a smile on
his face. Joe, age 24, also
independently went over to the swings and climbed on. I had forgotten how much fun these things
used to be. This park was equipped with
an exceptional set of obstacles that included a rocket ship and three really
tall slides, but getting to them appeared to me to be a bit of a
challenge. I was not sure if either of
the guys could manage it. What do I
know? I’m just a Mom.
On
day number four, I made my way up the first level of steps, then negotiated a curved
ladder that was reversed leading to a landing.
I found it to be a little bit awkward, but Jake followed me without
hesitation, leaving me speechless. I
never knew he, the one with the most limited of motor planning success, could
conquer such an obstacle…but he did. I
was so proud. He took his time and
carefully placed one hand then one foot in front of the other, surpassing each
rung by himself. It was awesome. I, then, left the landing and climbed another
long ladder that led to an even higher platform that led to a choice of three
different slides. Jake, again, followed,
picked a slide and went down ahead of me.
This would be the beginning of a new routine that would become each day’s
process. I felt as if we had managed to
make his little, but full, world a little bit bigger that day even with
something as small as going down a slide.
Joe,
too, made huge strides as he tolerated more and more calm and relaxed enjoyment
at the park. Then, there was day 10. The job site was deserted on this day, but
the numerous pieces of heavy construction equipment were still present. Joe has always loved big trucks, big “diggers”
and anything to do with Dad’s world.
Chris asked Joe if he wanted to drive the backhoe? At first, Joe was hesitant, but within 60
seconds, he was out the door of “Rocket” and standing next to the huge “digger”. Chris opened its door and Joe climbed up and
sat in the driver’s seat. Chris started
the engine. The door was closed now, so
I could not hear what was going on, but the gestures were gentle and calm. Joe grasped the steering wheel like he owned
the world. Suddenly, the gas pedal was
pressed and off they went for a jaunt around the property. Smiles were everywhere. After a few minutes, they returned to the
area where I was standing, Joe jumped out and bellowed a loud “Hulk-like”
sound. Total man moment.
The
following day, we were nearing the end of our work for phase number one on this
job (there are a total of three, typically).
We decided to take the afternoon off and see some of the local sites,
though limited. We had heard about one
of the most interesting spots, which was a historic carousel. Those words don’t even begin to describe this
“carousel”! This one was made in the
early 1920’s and is #6 in the patent office.
It is all hand-carved wood, with hand-painted panels and animals of all
kinds. There is a tiger, a lion, a
giraffe, a prong-horned sheep, and of course, horses. Our guys had never ridden a carousel, so we,
again, weren’t sure what to expect. I
had used the pic sims to attempt to communicate riding a carousel, but the
actual riding would be a surprise. We
paid the extremely affordable price of 25 cents apiece, picked our animals and
waited for the ride to begin. The
antique pipe organ began to play, and we began to circle at a rapid pace of 12mph,
which is pretty fast! I sat on a goat
next to Jake, who sat on a camel. Chris
sat next to Joe and off we went! We went
around and around for the full 4 minutes, feeling a bit woozy as it came to a
stop. All of us enjoyed our first ride
on this historic carousel and had fun while doing it! It was a great day.
To learn more about Cindi Rogers, read her full story at Becoming Mrs. Rogers
