What are you TEACHING him?

This is the temple according to Brogan. On it's less grand days, it's church. I tried to explain to him that it's actually where the President lives. That it's some ones house. He made that noise in his throat that he makes when he's annoyed with me and repeated, "church".
After days of talking about it, he finally came around. He now will tell you it's someones white house in Washington DC. The president, however, is still a non-person to him. Poor Bush.

Dreaming

I dream of the house I want some day. I dream of the car I want some day. I dream of the vacations I want to go on some day. I dream of the career I may want some day.
One thing I never dream of? Brogan being anything but what he is.
Jerry asked me about that the other day. Asked me why I had such big dreams in every other area of my life, but don't ever talk about what Brogan would be if he weren't Autistic.
I explained to him that I simply cannot. It's not that I don't hope that he will become independent, successfully employed, maybe even in a relationship.... I do. I sincerely with all my heart hope that my son will achieve these things.
However ... if I never see my dream home built, if I never drive my dream car, if I never fly off to a far off destination, if I never become independently wealthy ... I could easily live without these things. They are just things, places, long shots.
But if I were to build up a vision of what he may be, of what he could achieve, where he could go, what he could accomplish and then he stalls my heart would break.
Not for me. I can live with the idea of having Brogan being dependent.
However, for him. It would kill me. It would kill me to think of my son having so much potential. So much intelligence. So much humor.
And never living fully to know it.
So I live cautiously. I live with goals. Not dreams.

I (heart) Kimberly

After much internal debate over why I was/am so stressed about next year and Brogan leaving PPCD at ACFT (too many acronyms for ya?) I dug deep and discovered my greatest fear isn't the down grade in Brogan's schooling, the lack of specialization they have over at WCE, not knowing the teachers, being unsure of how he would react to being in a bigger classroom setting. Yes, all of these thing gnawed at me. The only rational fear in there is not knowing on a personal first name basis his teacher. So what, I asked myself, is my real fear?
*gulps ... presses back tears*
It's losing Brogan's teacher Kimberly Moll. I am completely sincere when I say I have no idea what I would do without her.
I finally got past my complete aversion/reverence/nervousness/intimidation of her role as Brogan's teacher a few months into his attendance at ACFT and her coming to our home for his in home training bi-weekly. It was a huge hurdle.
Now I find her to be one of the easiest people I know to talk to in person on a regular basis. I love having her come over to teach Brogan, talk to me about what's going on, go way off topic and talk about ex-boyfriends and road trips, discuss Autism forums, debate what's best and what's not really working.
Beyond her being a fabulous sounding board and willing to help me find answers to elusive topics I just sincerely like her.

Oh ... and Brogan really likes her too.
She's going to be really hard to move on from next year ...
Maybe I'll figure out how to become her friend.
Is that awkward?
I've never willfully set out to be any ones friend before.
Kimberly, are you reading this?
Wanna be friends?
I'll clean your pool if you take care of my imaginary chocolate lab in the summers ...

It Gets Confusing...

Sometimes it's hard to keep all the terms straight, to know all the correct terminology, to fully understand what information you're getting, to know what the right path is to take.
For instance when Brogan was first placed in PPCD I was told that they had very high hopes for him to be "Mainstreamed" by kindergarten. I was under the mistaken impression this meant in with the general education classes with an aide. That definition, however, is actually what is applied when speaking of "inclusion education". The definition of "Mainstreaming" applies when students are placed in special education classes but "visit" general education classes for instruction and social activities with their typically developing peers.
We should have a review soon to discuss what the next couple of years look like for Brogan. I've been talking about how I want things to go with Kimberly and she thinks we should be able to find a solution for Brogan's schooling next year that I am comfortable with and is the best for Brogan. Seriously, with the classroom sizes bordering on 23 students in every school in the district ... something has to be done. Especially for students who will not be okay in larger classes with a lot of distractions.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Today we went to Canton with Jerry's parents, sister in law and grandma. The last part of the day, the kids were worn out from walking for 7 hours, a wee bit cranky and ready to pack it in. Then Brogan saw the green trolley that shuttles people in between the three bigger areas in the market place. He immediately started repeatedly asking if we could ride the green trolley. Even going so far as to spell out green for me, you know so there wasn't any confusion as to what he wanted. Or something. Since I was also tired and ready for a sit down, I agreed.
He picked a seat near the front, waited for the trolley to start on its' route, stood up, cleared his throat and ...
"Ladies and Gentlemen! (Both hands swooping around). I am Brogan. (Both hands placed on chest) If you look over here (with a wipe sweeping motion), you'll see some ... (peering out window) elephants! They are big and gray ... " He continued on his little "tour" for a good 15 minutes, introducing invisible animals, giving random facts and entertaining the three bench radius. The only tour like this he has ever been on was when we went to the Animal Kingdom this past January ... I guess it really stuck with him. And I guess the fact that there actually was animals on THAT tour totally escaped him ;)