Hey now, the Dream is Over

Okay, so its not that bad, but the honeymoon period has indeed ended. I knew as soon as I went to pick him up and realized that the resource room gal was waiting with him. I wouldn't say she was surprised, but she did seem a little resigned to admit that we his parents indeed knew what we were talking about. It would seem that, in her words, our son "doesn't do well with the word 'no' and doesn't seem to think that the rules that the other kids follow apply to him". Um, yeah. That's pretty much the definition of your typical child with Aspergers/High-Functioning Autism. No surprise there. Now as to what we're going to do about it, she says she has some ideas and would like to meet with us next week to set up his new IEP. Seeing as how my son himself already divulged that he has broken in the classroom discipline system -- not in those words -- this should prove to be an interesting week. (He said that he got a "yellow card," which is a warning, and didn't receive a reward like the other kids.) I think I've been holding my breath since the first day of school. The good news is that now I can exhale. The bad news is that things are going to get a lot more complicated. Time to revisit the Psalms!

What Child is This??

Shock and awe. That's how I would describe what I feel about how well my son is doing this week. He happily hops aboard the bus each morning, waving goodbye with a grin. Each afternoon, he follows his teacher and fellow classmates out the door, waits for his teacher to release him to me, then rushes over and lets me hug him! He's tired, but with the exception of one day, has been mostly mellow until bedtime. I cannot even begin to describe how much of a change this is -- you really have to know him to understand. I don't know if its due to the novelty of kindergarten, the level of stimulation he has all day, or just the fact that the rest of us are more relaxed with the schedule change. I do know that all the prayer has played a significant role in his success thus far! (Thank you!) I honestly had no idea that he would do this well. I am so pleased! Now we must pray that he will continue to thrive as he adjusts for the long haul.

My little guy has been doing well too. He is just as happy as a three-year-old can be getting to have mommy to himself all day. As I alluded to above, things are just so much calmer around here and that helps significantly in how we all cope. I'm not as exhausted in the evenings and can get more done, too.

The picture above right is from an evening jaunt to the Puget Sound this past weekend. I was able to stock up on more boy-on-the-beach photos, of course, but also snapped this photo of my fearless child investigating a couple of (harmless) jellyfish that had washed ashore. Fun stuff!

Wordless Wednesday

How to Save a Life

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/10/rescue.at.sea/index.html

Autism Fact Sheet

I've had several people ask me for more information about autism lately. I found this fact sheet, hypothetically written from the perspective of a child with autism, to be a better-written one than many others: http://www.autism-help.org/tell-you-autism-asperger%27s.htm .

Obviously, its pretty general, not specific to my particular son, but I think it covers a lot of the basics. I also found it ironic that the site has a header photo of a boy in the waves -- my boy's favorite place to be!

First Day of School...For Real

My boy is officially a Kindergartner! He reported that his favorite part of the day was riding the bus -- he's been looking forward to that ever since he learned what a school bus was -- and that he got to go to gym twice and got lost coming back both times. (I'll press for more details later!) There are few things he hates more than to be pestered about his day. It will usually come out in completely random fashion at a later time. In the meantime, some pictures:

First Day of School...Sort of

Wednesday was Kindergarten Orientation. Not to be confused with Kindergarten Round-Up. That took place in May. Or Kindergarten Registration. That took place following Kindergarten Round-Up. No, Kindergarten Orientation was what we had yesterday and consists of everyone dressing their child in new school clothes only to go to school for one hour, parents sitting in tiny chairs listening to the teachers explain discipline procedures, snack sign-up, and how to pick up the children in an orderly fashion, while the children learn proper bathroom-requesting techniques and other equally critical information. In truth I think the whole thing was a clever ruse to keep parents from clogging the classroom on the REAL first day of school in order to ascertain that same information.

It was a little unnerving to walk into the room, knowing that the kindergarten staff has already heard all about your child. Based on the information they had they certainly would have preconceived ideas about him...and us. ("Ah, so THAT'S him. And THOSE are his parents.") It was hard not to be paranoid. Honestly, I was more nervous about the impression we made on the staff than I was about anything else. We have had many hurtful experiences in the last month and it really has put me on the defensive.
I think I mentioned before that we already knew to which teacher he was assigned. We had never really actually met her, however. I was so glad to finally do so. I have really high hopes for his success in her classroom. She is just about the most perfect fit for him that one could ask for, praise God.
Our last classroom experience was so unique, it was hard to know what to expect when seeing him in a group of "normal" children, all strangers. He was a bit hesitant at first to leave for the other room with all the kids, but he said goodbye as he did so -- which is a big thing, in and of itself. He also waved to us upon his return. The children were asked to sit on a rug full of colored squares and, lo and behold, he held out for an orange square, his favorite color, despite having to sort of squish into that spot. He's so particular about those sorts of things! I wouldn't be surprised if he sat in that exact square all year long!
Overall, he did very well with his little hour of school -- it was afterward that was a nightmare. All the conflicting emotions and new situations and information to process left him in quite a manic state. He was wild and angry and a big flailing mess all day long. I'm counting on tomorrow afternoon, following his first full day of school, being just as bad. I'm very confident that he will be fine while he is actually at school. That's just the way it works...until he gets bored. We'll just watch and see! Another thing of which I'm confident? He is SO ready to be at school. And I am SO ready for him to be there!
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In other news, we continue to plod our way through the five hour RDI DVD. We can only do so much at a time, as we rarely have time together and it is A LOT of information to process...especially after a long day. It looks like it would be such a wonderful program for him, if we could actually implement it. And afford it. Its in my prayer journal, to be sure!

Also, be sure to check out the update on our adoption site!