Progress Reports

When Baduka aged out of Early Intervention and he started school, I was so nervous. For the months and weeks ahead of time, I didn't even want to talk about my baby being a big boy. I cried and made pancakes his first day to pass the hours until I could pick him up. He seemed so little that first day in April.

Today was his last regular school day. He has a week off before the summer program starts. Today was also the first of his school progress reports. I sat in the front seat in the driveway, with tears in my eyes, reading all his accomplishments. All of his little checkmarks in the boxes marked EMERGING. For Baduka, I'm sure school is just that place he goes to get away from his crazy mother and brothers. But for me and Daddy, school is the place that's making our baby a little boy.

In the past 3 months, he has come so far. He has confidence. He wants to play and interact with other kids. He tries to communicate. He mirrors so many words and songs. There have even been times when he's actually talked, if that makes sense. Normally, the things he says are repeats of  what he hears. But then there are times, like this morning, when I handed him a cookie and he said, "issa cookie, iss gooood." He continued eating his cookie and I came in the kitchen and cried a little bit.

Most parents take all these things for granted, but when we got an autism diagnosis for him, we weren't sure what we could take for granted anymore. When we worried that he didn't know what words were, and that they have meanings and weren't just sounds, people would try to joke about being happy he didn't talk, because their kids never shut up. We HATE hearing that. I would do anything to know that when I say something to him, he knows what I'm talking about. I would love to take away his frustration, by knowing exactly what he is trying to say. I would love to prevent the crying and confusion. So we celebrate every little victory.

When he says "Ready! Set! Go!" We cheer so loud.
When he points to a tree and says, "Issa tree!" We high-five.
When today he watched the windshield wipers on the school bus going, and started singing, "the wipers on the bus go swish,swish,swish," I sang along with him.

I hope by all the cheers, "Yay! You did it!"s, high-fives and hugs, he knows how proud we are of how far he's come. I can't wait to see what else his big, cute head holds.