Parent teacher conference was this past Tuesday. We normally don’t take the monkey to these types of events. We made the mistake of taking him once, when he as in Pre-K and it was a disaster. He didn’t understand that we were there to talk to the teacher. He assumed it was class. He didn’t understand why it wasn’t morning and why the bus didn’t take him. So the meltdown was pretty bad. In the end my daughter had to stay with him in the car.

But this past Tuesday my daughter worked and my parents couldn’t baby sit, so we had to take him. My husband and I planned for the worse. We’d go in together and if he got bad, we’d take turns staying with him in the car. We were to talk to his teacher, therapist, and if we had time, his principal. I had my notes and questions ready. We bravely ventured out to school.

As we arrive to the school, the monkey was confused. He looked at the school and us. That’s not how he normally arrives to school. “Where’s the bus?” he seemed to be asking bus. But he got out of the car without any hesitation, holding our hands as he walked in.

He went straight to his classroom. He went straight to his work station. He was happy and smiling and being silly. He let us talk to his teacher, discuss the issues, and we talked about ways to help him at home. We stayed over 30 minutes without any issues. He even had to go to the restroom so he went to his calendar and moved the PEC to bathroom to let my know husband know he needed to use it.

As we are leaving the classroom, our next stop was therapist and he did great there too. He was patient the entire time we were there.

When we were finally done, as we are in the hallway walking towards the exit, he lets go of my hand and runs away from me. I tried to catch him before he went outside but I didn’t need to. He was running towards P.E., the gym. He was laughing and being silly.

If you recall, he was doing terrible during his transition to PE this year. This is where we think prior year’s teacher hurt him. So he hated P.E. He was terrified of it. He hated it last year and he hated it at the beginning of this year too. But this week, he ran towards the gym. He wanted to show it to us.

He expressed to us that his coach was a good coach. His teachers are caring. He’s in good hands.

My son doesn’t speak. But he does communicate to us. And in this conferencee, he was telling us he is safe and happy. But best of all, he’s healing.

What more can a parent want?