The Measure of How Far We've Come

I was driving around this morning when it occurred to me what was so different about my meeting with Nic's teacher this morning for semi annual conferences.

Hubby was there, and the kids waited in the hall-SOP. We reviewed his progress, appraised his strengths and assessed his weaknesses. Overall, a great meeting.

But what made this meeting different, I realized as I was driving, was that we met with Nic's teacher. The regular ed teacher. The AS/LS teacher was nowhere to be had. And that was fine.

When you consider that 4 years ago, that whatever questions I had for Nic's teacher were redirected to the AS teacher, I say that we've made huge progress.

Nic's teacher has taken full ownership of Nic as her student. HER student.

Do I dare think that he is no longer THAT kid?

Well, no. He will always be THAT kid, but not the same THAT kid he was perceived as 3 years ago. But when I consider the fact that he wasn't even talking seven years ago, he wasn't conversational until 2 years ago, and that only recently he's been able to tell me himself if he's been running into trouble in school--that's huge, huge progress.

But the fact that I was meeting with ONE teacher, the regular ed teacher--and not a whole team? WOW.

We're not done, but wow, how far we've come.