5th grade graduation

Tuesday, I got a phone call from Dominic's classroom teacher telling me that Dominic was not participating in the choreography for gradutation and what would I like to do - have him stand there or pulled out and sit in a chair.

My response was "what graduation"

Yeah. so, apparently the message didn't get sent home that we needed to have him at school at 445 for a graduation ceremony on Friday.  This is part of the special needs parents life - when your kids cannot tell you what they did for the day, you rely on staff to let you know.  They kind of failed.

I told his teacher to ask him what he'd like to do about it.  She sounded so surprised by that answer.

So we got all dressed up.... he was so handsome.





and we went to school last night.  this whole thing was just surreal at that point.

It ended up being standing room only, and I sort of felt weird we didn't bring along extending family / friends.  Seemed that many people did.  huge numbers of people had bouquets of flowers and balloons to congratulate their graduate.  That seemed.... over the top for 5th grade...

He did ridiculously well - no stimming, he stayed in his spot, sat and stood on cue.  he was so totally bored, and it took all he had to just be still with them, but he did it.

They got his name wrong in the announcement and oddly enough wrong when they introduced him. I'm waiting for a reply from the teacher with what was up with that.  

And we snuck out the back door, skipping cake because the crowd was bothering all three of us.


My emotions were tremendously conflicted.  Everything Dominic has accomplished, he has had to work WAY too hard for.  And by that measure everything he does is extraordinary and I'm so proud of him.  Conversely, when i leave my bubble of special needs and see him around his age peers - who are singing, acting, doing public speaking, doing team sports,  etc - it becomes excruciating to see how much of his childhood has been stolen by this brain injury. How far we have yet to go.   He deserves so much more than he's gotten. 

We are not convinced we've made the right decision to send him to middle school, but the decision is made and we're crossing fingers.