The Good, the Bad, and the Hopeful

Today was a really good day, and a really bad day. After all the good stuff we've been telling you about, I guess we were due for a setback.

First, the good. Today was the open house at Michael's elementary school. So, we got to spend 2 hours in the classroom(s) with him, and see his 'other' life. In the special ed room, he stayed in location pretty well, did what was asked of him, and participated. It was great to see some of his strengths. When it came time to see him in the mainstream room, it was obvious that he doesn't have the self direction to be there full time yet. Where the other kids could go from center to center and do the assigned tasks, he needed constant help focusing. He could read the assignment, answer the questions, and do the tasks. However, if there wasn't an adult with him, he'd be all over the room, getting into everything.

The bad: he had two major meltdowns today - one at school, and one at home. He recovered fairly quickly from the one at school, but the one at home took longer. Since it was so out of character for him, we had to do a little digging to try to figure out what happened. When we opened his lunch box, most of his lunch was untouched, and his water bottle was mostly full. Given that he was hungry and dehydrated, I'm not surprised he had trouble controlling himself. We also found out he had a headache most of the afternoon. So, we're giving him the benefit of the doubt, and trying to work with the school to keep him fed and hydrated.

He was a little nervous at bedtime since he knew he got a bad report from school. It was nice to see that he was actually reassured when we told him that the teachers knew he wasn't feeling well, and that no one was mad at him. We told him that tomorrow is a whole new day, and he can make it a great one. Hopefully, he will!