Wow!

Nothing like having a kid scream bloody murder in your face for an hour straight. You would have thought I was ripping his tiny little fingernails out one at a time and shoving razor blades in the nail beds. Jesus Christ kid, I think my head will be ringing for the next 3 weeks!

One of those 'Ah ha' days...

In my line of work those 'ah ha' days are what keep us going. Those days when something happens to remind you of why you drag your ass out of bed everyday to come to work, when you could easily be somewhere else making 3X the money for half as much effort. We had one of those days today. And to anyone else, these 4 little moments we had today would mean very little, but to me and the ladies I work with, it is these little moments that make it all worth while. What happened? 1st, we had one little boy ride a tricycle halfway across our little play area COMPLETELY BY HIMSELF. Doesn't sound like much? Well I have personally been working on this goal with him for almost 2 years! So hell yes, it is a big frickin' deal! 2nd... the same kid was playing with a toy and dropped the car that goes with it. It rolled under his chair, partially out of sight. He couldn't find it so I said *insert name here* LOOK and pointed to the car. (Normally this very normal exchange would result in absolutely nothing) but today he actually followed my finger to see where I was pointing and went to pick the car up! I was stoked! 3rd... at lunch a coworker and I were discussing something that had happened with another kid while we fed them and when we stopped talking he looked up and looked around with a very normal and sheepish 'whaaat?' I cracked up. It was so unexpected and so blatantly normal that it made my heart skip a beat. 4th... two days in a row now I've had one kid look at me and make direct eye contact and babble something. His little brow furrowed in concentration as he tried to make me understand. Really TRYING to talk to me. It simultaneously made my heart hurt that I couldn't understand what he wanted to to tell me and made me want to shout with joy that he was actually trying to communicate. So yes, today was chock full of Ah-ha moments.

To those of you who made it all the way through thanks for reading. I know it doesn't mean much to anyone else, but for everyone who asks how I can do what I do... it's these little moments, the proof that they are learning and growing, that keep me going.

Spiderman and "Little Frankie"

So in the preschool I work in, we have morning kids and afternoon kids. The afternoon kids don't come on Friday so they wore their costumes today so we could practice trick-or-treating (just in our building going around to the different classrooms to get them ready for tomorrow night). One of our little boys got off the school bus wearing one of the padded spiderman costumes (Like Jalen's here:)....
And oh I almost died from the cuteness. I got my hands wet and tousled his hair so he had that windblown spidy look :) It was great. Our other little guy was Frankenstein or "Little Frankie" as he called it. (no this isn't him, just the costume... isn't it cute :)

It was seriously sooo cute! However, "Little Frankie" was not a fan of the trick-or-treating (or more so the "strangers" involved in the trick-or-treating.

Tomorrow night for our trick-or-treating Jake, Kesha & the boys (and probably Amber, Smitty & their kids) are coming over to gramma's like always and we'll go trick-or-treating together. Lori is bringing Kaylee over to come with us this year. It should be lots of fun. We will miss having Annie and Keith this year... it's the first Halloween without them here (so you'd better take lots of pictures of them in their costumes!!!!) Which reminds me, I'd better get my camera stuff out and charging tomorrow morning so it will be ready for the big night :) I promise I'll post pictures as soon as I can :)

And of course, what would a post be without my newest scrapbook page. Here's Avery's... (and if you haven't noticed, yes I'm taking turns so that all of the kids will have the same amount at any given time :)

So glad I went...

So I almost chickened out of going to the event tonight. It was at the park at the end of our street and I walked down there by myself, saw the crowd of people, turned right back around and went home. I texted one of the other girls I work with and asked if she was still planning to go. She was so I had her just come to my house and we walked down there together. A third lady that works with me showed up just a few minutes after we got there. I am so glad I went. His mother was so glad that we came to support him. I could see that she was being pulled in a thousand different directions and trying to feed our little guy dinner all at the same time so I volunteered to feed him so she could go. I was so happy that he was glad to see me. He was sitting in a stroller and kept trying to pull himself up my leg... (which with ketchup/hot dog juice covered hands left me smelling delicious I might add). But we had a good time and I'm glad that I went. So until later... Holla!

Seriously...

I swear, I'm one all-nighter away from needing a Mobsters intervention. Here it is 1:45 in the morning and I literally can not make myself turn off this damn computer and go to bed. Why does the middle of the night have to be the best time to play this game? I have seriously made over 2 million dollars in about 2 hours. How? Because everyone else in their right mind is asleep and aaaallllllll their money is piling up just waiting for me to take it.

Yeah, My name is Jen and I'm an addict.
And they thought crack was bad.

Now just so I don't feel like such a loser, lets talk about my day at work. My very long day at work. One of the girls in another class called in and another one had to leave before school even started because her baby got sick. That meant that one of us had to go over to help out in the other classroom. Which meant that no one got a break allllll day long. Not that it was that bad during the actual school day, I love working with the kids and am always bored when I have prep time... but holy crap there was soooo much to do today and no one had time to do it so we were scrambling around trying to get everything done in the fifteen minutes between when our kids leave and it's quiting time for us. By the time I got home i was sooooo tired. And yet, here I still sit at almost two in the morning playing this damn game and I can't make myself stop.

I cried like a baby...

Yeah, so I broke one of my number one rules and cried in public at work on Thursday. I rarely ever cry and never in public. I couldn't hold it back though. I put my favorite little boy on the bus for the last time (he's starting kindergarten in the fall). I know it is good for him to be moving on, but I was sooooooo sad. I'm going to miss him so much. We had a great last session though. I had him last that day and luckily for me he was in a very cuddly mood so I spent a lot of time holding him and cuddling him close. We played a lot and had a lot of fun, so at least I was sending him off with good memories. But alas, I teared up as I put him on the bus (of course after getting one last big bear hug). I held back the tears until I was walking back inside and one of my co-workers asked me if I was crying. No but I am now... thanks! At least I wasn't the only one, there were about three of us with tears just rolling down our cheeks. At least I didn't feel like such a sissy. I know there will be more kids that come to us and I'll love them all too, but man, I sure will miss my boy.

Bitter Sweet...

So as the last few days of work approach I am having such mixed feelings it's not even funny. For those of you who don't know, I work in a special ed preschool with kids with severe autism. Whenever I tell anyone this the first thing they say is 'how can you do that? It must be so hard.' And honestly, some days I wonder how we're going to make it through the hour, but the good days so far outweigh the bad. Whenever I see something about Autism on TV it's always focused on tantrums and how hard it is to deal with the behavior. I've never really seen anything that looks beyond the behavior to show how really sweet and lovable these kids can be. They laugh and play just like other kids, but a lot of times just in a different way. And the joy it brings to watch them discover new things and learn new skills is just indescribable. I had one of those Ah-ha moments a few weeks ago when one of our parents came in to pick up the child I was working with. As they were about to walk out the door, my little guy suddenly broke away from his dad and ran back over to where I was sitting and threw his arms around me and placed a big juicy kiss on my cheek. I'll admit that I had to hold back tears... kids with autism have delayed social skills and for him to spontaneously show affection like that reminded me so much of why I do what I do and I love it so much.

But now the school year is coming to an end and more than half of our kids will be moving on this year. It's going to be so hard to let them go. I feel like I'm letting go of my own kids and can't help but wonder if their next teachers will be good enough. If they'll keep up with their programs and keep them going in the right direction. To relinquish that control on them will be hard. And not to mention how much I am going to miss these kids. I've spent 30 hours a week with them for the past year and you can't help but form an attachment to them. While it's great that they're progressing and moving on, I am soooo sad to be letting them go.