Friday, February 12, 2010

Happy (almost) Valentine's Day!

Today is Jaysen's Valentine's party at school.
He was getting frustrated with me from mentioning it so much, until I joked that he might get a kiss from a girl. My mistake. Now he's all about the party. So much that he did his spelling homework with minimal argument, and then proceeded to hand write all of the valentines for his class. And he hates writing.

What was superawesomefantabulous, was that he included not only his teachers, but the other kids in the resource room. Why is this a big deal? Because Jaysen has been "afraid" of anyone with an outward physical disability. I've theorized that this is because either A) It's just unfamiliar to him, and we know how he deals with unfamiliar... and/or B) It makes him more aware that he is different from his peers. Like if they're here and I'm here, that means there's something wrong with me- line of thinking. I think I mentioned Abby before (maybe not, because I can't find a post to reference), but we had a rough time with Abby last year. She wasn't the problem- it was my kid.

Abby drools. Apparently a lot. So Jaysen decided to call her "Booger Abby". I was mortified when he explained this to me. I sat him down and had a talk about people's differences,, awareness and tolerance. We talked about things people can help and things they can't. We talked about other people's feelings, and how that would make him feel. "But she hits me!" I told him I didn't care what she did to him, and that he didn't have to be friends with her, but if he sees her in the hallway, he has to say hi, wave, or smile. And he did. He even encouraged her to jump on the trampoline when the OT couldn't get her to.

But awareness isn't the focus of this post.
Just got a bit carried away with the back story.

Outside of his classmates, guess who the first kid was that he wanted to make a valentine for? Yep. Abby! He actually thought of her without any sort of prompting or discussion. I was so proud. And happy. And proudly happy.

It was also funny that he wanted to give one to "the boy with the glasses, but I don't remember his name". And also to "Lisa". I asked if Lisa was a teacher or a student, and he said "Teacher. But I don't know her (last) name either. Just put 'Lisa', It's okay."

Alrighty then.

So, love is in the air for my Romeo.
Hope you get lots of Valentines!

2 comments:

Tanya @ TeenAutism said...

Right on! That's great that Jaysen's come around, even with the drool. (Nigel vehemently dislikes drool also.) Happy Heart Day!

Anonymous said...

What a great resource!