Good Times

While y'all oooh and aaah over my mom holding her newest granddaughter (and she is beautiful) I'll fill you in on some wonderful things happening with Ben.

Tomorrow morning our boy rides the bus to school for the very first time! Of course Nurse Lisa gets the honor of accompanying him since she's getting paid by the school district to take care of him while he's there. This is the only time I wish one of the nurses would play hookie from work.

Speaking of nurses we welcome back Vicki and Jenny! They will be rotating shifts those hours we haven't been able to fill since Jenny got moved to another case. This is good news for me and Joan since we won't have to scramble to find someone to watch Ben those weekends when I leave on Thursday.

Last night we had a funny incident occur when I told Joan about meeting Ben's new teacher yesterday. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Ben had a great day at school today."

Joan: "Oh really? What was so great about it?"

Me: "Well Ben and his classmates got to paint with fluorescent paint in the multi-sensory room {note: this particular room is lit by black light so we're talking a glow-in-the-dark, let's play some Pink Floyd experience} and we met his new teacher."

Joan: "New teacher? What was her name?"

Me (pausing for a moment): Uh...Stan. Stan Miller."

Joan (finally looking up from her computer screen): "Huh?"

That's right. Ben has a male teacher! Although I didn't get to see the initial introduction I'm certain Ben was thrilled about from Lisa's description and his typical response to having older males around. There's obviously nothing wrong with having female care-givers its just that field of employment is dominated by women much like the teaching profession. Given the fact that Ben has responded so well to therapies that I've been involved with we are excited about the potential outcome(s) for this school year!

And then finally I picked up the paperwork yesterday that will allow Ben to start getting another two hours of out-patient physical and occupational therapy each week. In fact I made his first appointment for a week from today. An added bonus is that the facility is only about a mile from our house.

We had been getting in-home therapies for him up until late last summer when the only provider in our area dumped their pediatric program. Since then we've been on our own for the most part. The school does provide therapy but with so many kids needing it he has been receiving only about a third of what he was getting at home.

This news is probably the most exciting in regards to Ben's future. We were highly complimented for the progress Ben had made over the summer. Can you imagine what he might accomplish once he starts working with some folks who actually know what they're doing? Sitting up by himself, standing, walking... the possibility seems so very real now!

I just want to conclude by saying none of this could've happened without the support of everyone that reads this blog. Whether you have bought artwork, said a little prayer, sent words of encouragement, or just passed along our story to someone else, all of it has made our family more determined to improve not only Ben's life but the lives of all the other exceptional families we encounter. Thank from the bottom of our hearts.