The First Week of Pre-school

I just found out that Joseph has finished his first week of school. Apparently there's no AM pre-school on Fridays. That's news to me, but that's ok.

So, the first week of school. On curriculum night, Joseph's teacher told Kristy that he is still resisting transition, but he's already doing better at sitting still for circle time, and he's making eye contact. The other day, he made eye contact with her from across the playground, ran to her and gave her a hug. :)

After he got home from school today, before his sister left for afternoon kindergarten, they had a small conflict and he did something that surprised me. Maria got a silly straw at school yesterday. She loves silly straws. But after dinner last night, she left Joseph use it to drink some milk or juice or something. Today at lunch time, she was in the basement and took a few minutes to come up when I called her. Joseph picked the silly straw up from the table and started drinking his juice with it. When Maria finally graced us with her presence, she saw Joseph using he straw and objected strongly. I told her that it is indeed her straw, but she shared it with him and doesn't understand why he should have to give it to her now. So I was going to let him finish his drink and then she could have it back. He finished his drink and left the table for a moment, so she took the opportunity to snatch it back when he wasn't looking. At first he didn't notice it was gone, he just went back to eating his spaghetti-o's. She noticed that he didn't noticed, and in true big-sister form, did her best to bring it to her attention, in between sips holding the straw up in front of her face. When he finally realized what had happened, he jumped up on his chair, held out his hand and shouted (pretty clearly), "Hey, stop, that's mine!"

This is a new milestone. Back in June, Joseph for the first time spontaneously verbally requested something, bringing me his cup and saying, "Juice." Since then, he still doesn't frequently use speech unprompted to communicate, but he's picked up a handful of words and short phrases that I think in his mind are single words like, "scuseme!" or "whatsthis?" This is the first time that he's apparently put together words to form a sentence.

I've heard from several parents of children with autism that one of the silver linings ASD is that what, for a typical child would be a small accomplishment like this, are magnified and that's so true. I will always remember sitting at my desk and Joseph bringing me his cup and saying, "Juice." And now I will always remember when he leapt out of his seat and shouted, "Hey, stop, that's mine!"

We're excited for week 2 of pre-school. We're looking forward to seeing what further progress he will make, and what surprise he will have for us next.