As many of you know, Kaden turned three this month and started pre-school. He is attending a special day class, with an excellent teacher and wonderful assistants. It is a very eclectic group of kids which we felt would be the perfect mix for him at this time.
This last week was his second week of school, and he absolutely loves it! There was a lot of excitement and smiles for him, and lots of tears for mom! I cried the first day when I dropped him off, I cried the day his teacher told me he was the "star" of the class, and I cried the first time he rode the bus.
I have been with this little man every day all day since the day he entered this world. I have brought him to therapy appointments, picked him up, and known exactly which questions to ask him to prompt him. Although he cannot talk to me, I have always felt like we communicate.
So I must say, the single hardest thing for me about him starting school is being away from him for four hours, and him not being able to tell me how his day was. The first day I picked him up off the bus I will never forget the look on his face. He was so excited to be riding the bus, and equally as excited when he saw me and Ayla waiting for him. When I got him inside, I starting asking a million questions. He answered "yes" to all of them, and I quickly realized that I didn't know which questions to prompt him, because for the first time ever I did not know what he had been doing for the last four hours. It broke my heart to think that he could have done something really fun & exciting at school, but could not tell me about it. I couldn't ask him about it, because I had not been there.
On Friday as we walked out our front door there was a pack of wild turkeys in our yard. Kaden was so excited...he started trying to whistle and call them like he does the dogs. We sat there for about 10 minutes talking about the turkeys and trying to say "gobble." He was so excited, he started grunting like he does when he gets excited about something. As we left for the bus I thought to myself "geeze, he is so excited about these turkeys he saw, and he won't be able to tell his teachers when he gets to school." So when he went to get on the bus I asked the bus driver if he would give the teacher a note for me and he said of course. I wrote the following note:
Teacher Karen & Assistants:
"Kaden saw a pack of wild turkeys this morning and was very excited...will you please make sure you ask him about them?!"
It probably made no difference to Kaden, but it sure made me feel better! This week Betsy (she is the behavioral therapist that works with Kaden a lot) is going into his classroom to take pictures of all of the kids and activities they do. I emailed Teacher Karen and asked for a song list of songs they sing at circle time, this way when he comes home from school we can look at pictures together and I can ask him specific questions about his day which will hopefully prompt more "conversation."
Once again, another little lesson about the things in life we often take for granted. Stop and tell someone about your day...they may want to hear it more than you could imagine.
Have a great week!
