First Day of School

Joshua had his first day of school today.  We've been doing meetings and evaluations and paperwork in preparation for school since April, but I'm still kind of in shock now that the day has arrived.  He's attending a developmental preschool, which meets 5 days a week for 3 hours a day.  It's a language intensive program and his only significant developmental delay is speech, so we are hoping that this will be a good fit and a positive experience for him.

Developmental preschool is offered through the public school system, so this meant that drop off was at the local elementary school.  I had pictured this very emotional scene - both Joshua and I in tears, not quite ready to take this big step - but the reality was (fortunately) very different.  His classroom is all the way at the end of the hall, so we navigated our little crew (me, Josh, and Zoey in the stroller) through the crowd of kids unloading off the buses and teachers directing them to the appropriate classrooms.  When we got to the right class, Josh had a brief moment of hesitation, but his teacher took his hand and showed him where to put his backpack and lunchbox, and that was enough distraction to avoid any tears.

I was feeling a little sad as we said our goodbye, but kept it together as we had to walk back through the long hall of teachers and kids, then had to meet with the school nurse to talk about G-button issues.  While we were meeting with the nurse, they did the morning announcements, which included the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem, and a moment of silence.  My mind wandered back to my Constitutional Law class and the lawsuits that have been filed about what those two minutes (of pledge / anthem / moment of silence) should be like and whether they should happen at all.  During the Pledge and national anthem, the nurse stood up and I followed her lead, but neither of us said anything and it was all pretty awkward.  Then the announcer moved on to the school menu, and we continued with our meeting.

I have heard from fellow parents of children with feeding tubes that school districts tend to be overzealous or underzealous when it comes to dealing with feeding tubes.  Our school district is definitely of the more low key variety.  I had to sign 3 forms during school registration in case Joshua gets photographed or filmed, but zero forms in regard to his feeding tube.  We wrote a medical plan in case the tube comes out and included it in the IEP, but that was only because I requested it.  They let me bring a spare G-button and replacement materials to the school, but again, this was only because I requested it.  It's nice that there's not a bunch of loopholes to jump through, but I'm kind of amazed that they don't have a more formalized system in place, as there must be other kids in the school district who have a G-button.

We picked Joshua up around lunch time and his teachers reported that he did great.  It will be interesting to see how he does at drop off tomorrow, now that he knows what this whole school thing is all about, and I don't think we'll have a true sense of how he likes it and what an average school day is like for him until we have completed a full week or two.  But we both made it through the first day, so cheers to that!

I have been very anxious leading up to this day, but I'm feeling a lot better now that school is actually underway.  It's nice to have a few quiet hours in the morning and a chance to give Zoey some one-on-one attention.  It's bittersweet to watch Joshua take the first small step towards independence, but I'm relieved that he handled it well and incredibly grateful that he's doing so well overall.