Maria has done great the past several days with her walking. She’s taking steps by herself (w/o us needing to “kick” her feet to move). When I walk with her, I always say “big steps” so she doesn’t step from behind to even with her other foot, rather she steps from behind to beyond her other foot — does that make sense? Big steps. Today, apparently (of course I wasn’t there to see it), she did great with Barb (PT)! She and Sue were so proud! She even walked to the door and back twice (I think) in the Miniwalk! Unheard of. She’s really getting the hang of it.
I’ve been dancing with Maria. She stands and I hold her hands facing her, I move my feet and shake her arms. The other day she even stepped her feet to the side once or twice. Wouldn’t it be awesome if when Manolis got off the plane, not only would we be standing, but we’d be dancing too? Dancing’s my goal. Standing’s the back up. Sitting in the stroller is the fall back.
Today was Meet the Teacher day at school. We went to her classroom and met her teacher, who seemed very nice. She didn’t know how much Maria would be in her class or when. She wasn’t sure if she could meet with me tomorrow (I’d like to meet with them before school starts to do some “training” of Maria’s uniqueness). She wasn’t sure which Resources (special ed) teacher Maria would have. But we wandered around the class, Maria seemed to like it. Looks like there will be about as many kids as in her preschool class, less than 15. One of the kids from her preschool class will be in her class, she and her mom both seemed very excited to see Maria.
Then we went down to the Resources rooms. Talked with a woman (not sure of her name or position), who wasn’t sure about tomorrow or teachers or therapists. She took us to one of the special ed teachers, who’s new at the school and is super nice, has lots of experience, and is very excited to be there. Since she’s new, she didn’t know much, but she said there was a mandatory training all day tomorrow that all the teachers and aides (paraprofessionals) have to go to. She took us across the hall to meet the other special ed teacher, who said, yes Maria will be with me for 5 periods and with the other special ed teacher for 3 periods, and after a week or two we’ll figure out how much she’ll be in the regular classroom. She said the mandatory training starts at 9am, but she’d love for us to come in at 8am for “Maria training” and she’d go to their training late. She even checked with the principal, who said that was fine. FINALLY, someone who knew something. You’d think since school’s starting MONDAY, they’d know where Maria was going to be…
Several of them remembered Maria’s transition book, but nobody had a copy. I updated it (the last one was from Oct 2008) and sent it to Kinko’s to have them print color copies, but unfortunately they won’t be ready until 9am, so I’ll have to drop them off at the school after our 8am get-together. (Isn’t that great? I just send the file, give them a credit card number, and walk in to grab a completed job!). It wasn’t as expensive as I thought, either, for 10 color copies of 6 pages each.
Even after all the walking and standing Maria did today, and even though I woke her from a dead sleep to drag her to school, she really seemed to enjoy it and I’m feeling a little more at ease.