Logan Starts School!!!

While Logan is only just a few months over 3 years old, he started in the Austin School District on Monday.  Due to his speech delay (and a few other things) he qualified to be part of a special program the school district offers, its the Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities (or PPCD).  Since he is just 3, he attends school for only 3 hours a day for 5 days a week.  He attends from 7:30am until 10:45am each day, so still plenty of time for him to enjoy the rest of his day.

I knew all summer he would start, but since his birthday was 2 days before school let out for the summer I had to wait until he could start up.  Next summer if they feel he needs help during those summer months he can continue to get help from the school, but since he was just enrolling he couldnt do it the 1st summer.  Anyway, the school near us did not have a PPCD class last year but was getting one this year, so again, I had to wait all summer to get any information as they didnt have a teacher yet.  I didnt know the time, what he needed to bring, anything, it was driving me insane!! So 1 week before school started I finally got some information on the class and everything was great from that point.

being shy in the morning, he did not want his picture taken, plus it was a bit earlier than normal :)

I called the school on Monday morning and got right to the teacher who I know was super busy but still took about 30 minutes on the phone to talk to me and said that Logan and I could come in so I could get my questions answered and he could see the school and the room and meet her so he would hopefully be more comfortable when school started.  Turns out she has a 3 year old boy and a 5 year old girl, the girl was herself in the PPCD program (she is starting kinder this year).  This is her first year to teach a PPCD class but she has worked in the special education department for many years and her assistant has been working the PPCD program for 9 years.  But she is just wonderful, so nice and friendly, she even offered to skip her lunch that day if we wanted to stay longer (which of course I did not let her do).  We were there for a little over an hour with her and then headed to the office to get him registered, which nobody had any clue what was going on with this program, but I did learn that Logan will be the youngest child in the school (which isnt too surprising really).  The teacher was busy on Tues & Wed but told us to come back on Thursday and bring Lisa since she will be helping out sometimes and then told us to come back again on Friday for the "Meet the Teacher" and that if we wanted to come early we were more than welcome.  Seriously, I love this lady.

Anyway, each time we went back he did great, didnt even get scared when we arrived for "Meet the Teacher" and he had to walk into the school with all the other parents and students (there were probably 50 families waiting to get in along with us).  We got him his school supplies, a water bottle (a smaller version of Ian's), a new backpack (well, we got this a few days after school started since he didnt like the hand-me-down we gave him), and new shoes that were not crocs (since thats pretty much all he wears otherwise).

when lisa got here he did not want to leave, he wanted to keep laying on the couch

we did have to bribe him with some m&ms to get him in the car, it worked!

On Monday morning Lisa was gonna come over to drive him to school, the ECI therapists (who set us up with this program) and the teacher suggested that it is often times easier on the kiddo to not have mom do it.  So she came over at 7 to get him ready since we didnt know how crazy the school would be.  He got up fine, I told him he was gonna play at school and he got right up, he got dressed, had some time for iPad play, did good but wouldnt really let me take good pictures and wouldnt walk out to Lisa's car unless I came with him.  But once he was in the car he was fine.  I guess there was a moment as he was walking up and tripped that Lisa thought it was all gonna fall to pieces, but he got up and was fine.  Such a big boy!!!!

a happy boy after his 1st day!!!

I picked him up on Monday and he had a great day.  He went back fine until Friday when there were some tears, and he has had tears each day since then, but whenever I pick him up he is happy and had a great time, so he just needs to start remembering that in the morning :)

his artwork from day 1

his artwork from day 2