Life Goes On

We adopted Travis at birth in July of 1993. At the time we owned a Hallmark card and gift shop that I operated. I brought Travis to work with me. I set up an area in the back of the store that had a bassinet and a baby swing. Most times if Travis was not in my arms, he was in the arms of a customer. If he fussed while I was busy with a customer, a fellow employee or another customer would go pick him up out of his bassinet or swing. This was the beauty of living in a small town. If I had a gift shop in a larger city, would shoppers have been as understanding?

I look back and wonder if this could be part of the reason that Travis doesn’t know any strangers.

As Travis got older I added a play area in the back of the store. It was closed in by panels that linked together. The panels had all kinds of neat gadgets to play with. And of course I added various toys. Customers would place their toddlers in there to play as well. What started as a way for me to bring my child to work became a great marketing idea. If a child was happily playing, the customer was more likely to spend more time in the store, and therefore more money.

It got harder to bring Travis to work once he started walking. I remember finding him walking along a card rack, using the rack to balance. And I was horrified to see that he had Cheeto hands! Anyone that has ever eaten a Cheeto knows exactly what I am talking about. As he held onto the card rack to balance himself, he was touching every card along the first row! Oh no!

Travis’s first experience with daycare was at a home daycare. At this point he was a normal developing toddler. We were watching his milestones carefully. We knew that there was significant mental health issues within the biological family. We did not have any major concerns at this time. Travis fit in and played well with the other children. Travis and the other kiddos in this home daycare all got chicken pox together. The caregiver still watched the kids since they all were sick. Which certainly made my life easier.

A commercial daycare opened in the same shopping center that my store was located. We felt that it may be a good time to move Travis to a daycare with more structure. He would be starting school soon. It was convenient for me to walk just a few steps to go get Travis picked up. He was able to stay there a bit later. This was helpful because a Hallmark store can be very busy during holidays.

Corey was six years old when I opened the Hallmark store. She spent a great deal of time there with me. I would assign some tasks to her. She earned a small paycheck. She had a never-ending box of items in the backroom on hold that she wanted to purchase. Just like every other employee!

Our bank was also located in the same shopping center. When Corey got paid she would come to the bank with me to cash her check. Our requirement was that half of each check had to go into her savings. There were times that she would be upset about this rule. If her check was $20 she only had $10 to spend. But the item she wanted was $12. After her employee discount. Meaning she had to wait a couple of weeks until she received her next check to purchase her item.

This lesson taught Corey about the importance of saving. It taught her how to prioritize her spending. There were many times that she found items she wanted when we were out shopping in other stores. Then show the item to me. I would ask her if she brought her wallet. Most times the item was returned to the shelf. There was a difference in how important an item was to her if she had to buy it with her own money.

I sold my store in early 2000 when Travis was just six years old. We tried giving him tasks when he was there with me, but he was always busy playing. At the time we chalked it up to his age and maturity level.

By this time Travis had started school. I opened a new business, a franchise cookie bakery. Travis would come to work with me. The first few years he went to school in our local town. We started to see behaviors immediately. He struggled a bit with preschool and kindergarten. But things got rough once first grade started. By the middle of third grade our local district decided they were unable to meet his needs and found an out of district placement for him. I wrote about this in great detail in previous blog articles.

When you own a bakery, the work day starts earlier than most jobs. Travis came to work with me in the mornings before school. The district had placed Travis in a setting out of town. The school bus would pick him up at my business, and bring him back after school.

Let me just say that having your kids with you at work can be hard. You want to give them the attention they deserve, but you also have work to get done. And you can’t go home until you do.

There are pros and cons to owning your own business. Being able to have your kids with you at work can be both a pro and a con.

As Corey got older she was quite a bit of help in my business. And it was nice for her too because she had a busy schedule between school and her other activities. Her boss (me) was very understanding about working around her schedule. Corey learned that when you work in a small business, you’re a big cog in a small wheel. (I know that’s opposite of the way you usually hear that saying!) If someone called in sick to the bakery, that six hours of production still needed to happen. There were times I expected to leave at 6pm and ended up working until midnight. That is just the nature of the business. (No cookie dough, no cookies!)

I always loved when people would tell me how lucky I was to own my own business. That I could choose to work whatever hours I wanted. That is somewhat true. The real truth was that I could work whatever sixty to seventy hours a week I wanted! (Sometimes more.) I would leave to attend my kid’s activities. They may not know this, but I oftentimes went back to work for a few hours after they went to bed. I also did my business accounting and payroll on evenings and weekends at home.

I believe that Corey may have inherited her entrepreneurial spirit from me. I hope that I also had something to do with her drive and incredible work ethic as well. She owns her own very successful businesses; Ascend Learning and Educational Consulting and Ascend SMARTER Intervention.

Corey had various other jobs in addition to working with me. She did continue to work at the cookie business until she graduated college.

Having your kids with you at work is one thing. Throw in special needs and it certainly gets interesting.

Remember, Travis had a significant sensory issue at the time. He still does, but does a better job of managing it as an adult. At the time he was attending school at a day treatment center. A placement that we argued was inappropriate. Travis struggled to get through the day. For many reasons including the quiet room. If you don’t know what that is, go back and read my blog article, “The Quiet Room”. That is currently my most read blog article.

So by the time he got off the bus, he was already overstimulated. He would run through the commercial kitchen into the backroom that we had set up for him. It had a TV with a gaming system, a bunch of Disney movies, a bean bag, blankets, Legos and toys. Travis would turn the TV on as loud as it would go, and then get under all of the covers. He was trying to not only overcome his day, but also drown out the constant noise in the kitchen. Commercial mixers and ovens running, timers going off, telephone ringing, employees talking.

Needless to say, I was not able to give Travis tasks and teach him about paychecks and saving in this environment. And that is on top of the fact that he has great difficulty following directions and staying on task.

It was very difficult to manage Travis’s behavior while I was at work. I went through his backpack while he was in the back room covered with blankets. I would place his homework and a snack on a table for him. And the battle began. Travis needed 1:1 attention to complete any work. Which I would try to give. But I also needed to answer the phone or help the customers that came in the door.

He would escape to the backroom and put a movie or game on. Or he would run out the back door to play outside. I was grateful for the school settings that Travis attended that did not require homework. Because they understood that homework created a battlefield and they wanted home life to be more about family spending quality time together.

Same battle again and again. Day after day. I found myself allowing more and more outside or backroom time. Because it was just easier. I had an ongoing argument in my mind. I knew it was important for him to complete his homework, in the interest of learning. But at the same time when he was outside or in the back room with all the lights off and blankets on, he was unwinding. From a hard day. And frankly, completing worksheets was not teaching this boy anything. It is not how he learned. And somehow he gets by in life without being able to write in cursive.

Another pro of owning your own business. You don’t have to ask your boss if you can leave work when the school calls and tells you to come pick up your son. He is having a meltdown. Because you are the boss.

The con is that the first couple of times this happens, you are not at all prepared. You have to lock up your business because you are the only one there at the time. During regular business hours. I have had to leave a note on my business door to pick up your cookies at the business next door. I ended up having to schedule additional staff so that if I had to leave, someone else was always there. Which created additional expense.

Another con. You do not have group health insurance. We were able to buy a personal plan for our family from private insurers. Except for Travis. With all of his evolving diagnoses, Travis had pre-existing conditions. We had to buy a plan from the state called CoverColorado. CoverColorado is a non-profit entity created by the Colorado Legislature to provide medical insurance for residents that were uninsurable. The premium was high, for not the greatest of coverage.

Six months after I opened my franchise cookie bakery, I bought a second location. I operated both for several years. When the lease expired on my first location, I condensed the two businesses into one that could handle our entire territory. The bulk of our business was delivering cookie bouquets. We were able to accomplish all of our deliveries with one storefront. Which saved quite a bit of money in overhead.

Travis’s first few years of school he hung out with me before and after work. After filing for due process, the hearing officer met with us and our district. After the mediation process our school district agreed to pay for Travis to attend private school. The closest private school was in Denver. Once he was in Denver he spent time at Tracy’s business after school. Which worked when Tracy owned the business. Once he sold his business he could no longer have Travis there.

The district started busing Travis home from Denver. We came to the hard decision to sell my business because Travis needed more attention and support. At one point I had a buyer but her financing fell through.

I came to the realization that the business was not going to sell. The franchise as a whole had sold. The new franchisor made some changes to the business that were good for his bottom line, but not the franchisee’s bottom line. Within a year about 100 stores closed. My prospective buyers always walked away once their research showed them how many stores were closing. It’s a long and involved story.

Ultimately I decided to close the store rather than renew my lease. The beauty of Colorado is that I was able to sell pretty much all of my commercial kitchen equipment down to every last spatula to a medical marijuana bakery. In cash. He laughed when I told him that I was going to need him to pay in cash. He told me that he had way more cash than I did. I’m sure it was true!

Travis was already in high school when I retired. This school assigned a great deal of homework. Everything that Travis did not accomplish during the day came home as homework as well. I read the entire American History textbook out loud to Travis. Again, not the way he learns. Those of you that know me know how excruciating that was for me. History is my least favorite subject.

I do have to admit that I relearned a great deal of history that I had forgotten since I was in high school. I was the type of learner that memorized facts for a test and did not retain a thing in that class. But now I have forgotten it all again. I have said it again and again. My brain is at capacity. Every time I learn something new I lose something. And I have no idea what that something is until I need it. Could be a word. Usually I describe the word I am trying to say until Tracy or a friend guesses it correctly. It could be a name. So don’t be surprised.

I will admit I felt relieved after my trip to Sedona. Turns out my three friends brains have hit capacity as well. We spent our days together playing guess the word with each other. It was part of the reason we were nonstop laughing!

For English I would scribe for Travis as he dictated a storyline for a video game he hopes to develop someday.

Travis would not have been able to graduate high school without the high level of support that I gave him during that time.

Retiring early was the best decision for our family. It takes an incredible amount of my time and support to continue to advocate for Travis’s needs.

To be honest, I never really made decisions about whether I should own a business while raising kids by the pros and cons method. We just figured it out as we went. Would it have been better for my kids if I didn’t work? Or if I worked regular hours for someone else? I don’t know.

What I do know is that life goes on.

“You may think I am doing this without taking the time to really think it through, and you’re absolutely right. It would take me the rest of my life to think this thing through. But it’s while you’re thinking, while you’re weighing the pros and cons, that life goes on. It passes by you while you’re doing nothing.” - Marc Levy, Author

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