First Day Back

Mason started regular school today. 

I woke him up at 7am. For the past 2 years he's never woke up before 8am but today he was dressed, fed, and packed all by 7:15am. I'm going to guess he was really excited!

In all honesty- he was really excited but also nervous. Last time he was in school he didn't have the best experience. Kids ignored him, a few bullies won't leave him alone, and teacher just let him slide by without caring. No one seemed to understand what autism was and how to help him. So this lead us to homeschooling him

But Mike and I each had the prompting that it was time that he go back. We've had the thought come and go for awhile now that we were to prepare him. But then the feeling would go away. So all I could do was teacher him so he would be caught up academically with his grade level when the time came for him to reenter regular school. (Which he is actually alittle ahead on some things :-).....but who's bragging, right?)

But the time came right before Christmas break. The prompting came to us like a slap on the back that is was time....RIGHT NOW...to sign him up. So I did.  K-12 was out for winter break so no one knew he was withdrawing until today but oh well. I'll deal with them later.

Anyways this morning Mason, Hailey and I went to school 30 minutes early. We re-toured the school so he would know where everything was at. He met his teacher, checked out the classroom before all the kids went in, and just took everything in. Sort of like when a new parent just stares at their baby for the first time. Speechless. Just touching everything softly. Soaking it all up. After about 5 minutes of this Mason ventured back to the teacher and I, where we were talking about teacher stuff, and said he was good now. 

There was still a few minutes before school so I showed him where Hailey's class was. He was pretty excited to know that she was down the hall. Afterwards she stood in class while I walked him to where his class lines up. While there he seen a few kids from church and scouts and made instant friends. He was all smiles when I left that playground. It was really awesome seeing my son laughing and joking with other kids. With kids who knew him and of his autism and didn't care. Pretty awesome mom moment!

Anyways Mason wanted Mike to come at lunchtime to make sure that he was doing OK. Mason said if their were any bullies that Mike could take him back home. I admit that I passed my worry gene down to my son. So at lunch Mike went to his school with his homemade lunch and had lunch with him. They had a great lunch date but most importantly Mason said he was doing great. He hated that he had to wait for lunch since he's use to eating whenever he wanted but other than that- he was great! 

When he came home after school he went right to work doing his homework. It took him about 6 hours to complete it. But that's due to our fault. Mike and I didn't realizes that the homework packet is meant to last a week. So he did a week's worth of homework in 1 night. Oops! Oh well.....he's enjoying all his free time. He'll still need to do his 30 minutes of reading but after that he can kick back and relaxing. Mason said that he plans to do this more often so he can have more free time. Smart kid!

Well in all... I miss him like crazy. Lily and Cati- miss him like crazy. But Mason- he's doing great!