Four Binders and a Folder

With having special needs kids comes a lot of paper work. A LOT OF PAPERWORK. I have kept mostly on top of it since their birth, putting some (reference material) in a binder and others (doctors consult notes) shoved in their baby book, but it hasn't been quite as organized as I'd like considering I am adding to it all the time.

These days I am in a flurry of organization. The toy room/spare room/rec room has had a major overhaul. The boys room is in the process of an overhaul of its own. Our bedroom furniture is being downsized a bit. It's all fun for a control freak, type-A lady like myself, but it's also exhausting. As part of this organizing/downsizing ordeal, I decided it was finally time to tackle the paperwork for the boys.

I took a stack of paper and a hole punch and seriously thought it would take me 15 minutes. HO-LY CRAP is all I can say. It took me allll night. I thought I would be ok because the one binder I had been maintaining with all of its pretty dividers was under control. I was right, that one binder was more or less good. But the rest of it? Yikes.

End result was as follows:

1. Therapy: Handouts-a-plenty, plus personalized captioned photos, of stretches and exercises for the boys. Pretty self explanatory, divided into sections for Asher, Nolan, and General (applies to both).

2. Disability Info: This was the original binder I had been maintaining. It has everything from grants/funding to disability savings plans to alternative therapies and recreation activities to interview tips for a respite worker. That one is my bible.

3. Nolan Medical: Consult notes from the NICU, NICU follow up, neurologist, physiatrist, and therapy team. Does not include anything not related to their hospital stay or CP. Cannot imagine how thick the binder would be if I got copies of consults with all of the other specialists they have seen over the past 3 years.

4. Asher Medical: Stating the obvious - same as Nolan's.

Lastly, an honourable mention goes to the blue pocketed folder. Not quite a binder (yet) but containing all of the information and forms that go along with the At Home program. When the time comes that Asher receives any other equipment or benefits, it will grow to a binder of its own.

Four binders and a folder. Seriously. And to think Rio "just" has a baby book.

My question is - how do special needs parents who aren't natural-organizational-freaks like myself able keep afloat in the sea of stuff we need to keep track of?!