Back to School...

Another school year has started. I thought I would be so excited for school to start, but in many ways it made me strangely sad. I think it is because it represents my kids growing up way too fast. Cayden is now in third grade and the girls are in first grade. I think first grade is one of the toughest transitions because it means school all day. After the HORRIBLE start of the last school year, I was having serious anxiety about the whole thing with Ashlee. Going to "meet your teacher day" didn't help much as we decided this year to put the girls in separate classes. I have now decided that rocket scientists and CSI's have nothing on parents who have kids with autism. Trying to decipher what they need or want or what is causing them stress is sometimes close to impossible. It is times like this that I look around at the other parents and wonder what it would be like to go to a function like this without some sort of issues arising. Rob gave all of us beautiful Priesthood blessing the night before school started and we spent a week trying to calm Ashlee's concerns about being in a different class. We know it has been a blessing that things have gone as well as they have. They have all done remarkably well and although Ashlee still prays every night that sometime she and McKell will be in the same class, she seems fine with it. She of course tells me weekly that she hates "freaking stupid school" but I don't believe it for a second.

So school has now started at Navigator Pointe Academy and Sadie and I are at home together. Poor Sadie didn't know what to do with herself for the first week with all of her "entertainment" gone. She kept crawling around looking for all of them. She is adjusting now and getting used to just being with mom, although she gets SO excited when she sees them get in the car.

I love seeing my kids get excited to learn. I love hearing them share what new things they have learned that day. Cayden, who is studying mammals, informed us that a giraffe has four stomachs and that gorillas can communicate. Ashlee tells us often about the human body and McKell comes home singing new songs every day it seems.

So here's to another great year at 'freaking stupid school.'