Goals

One of our big goals for Krassimir and Reuben in spending their days in the public school is that they will have exposure to as many of the people who will be their peers in the community when they are adults (and, with Reuben, there's always the ever-present if he lives to be an adult caveat echoing in my head).

Today we made our Wednesday library run two days late, and just as we were packing up to leave, a girl came over to Krassi and greeted him. I spoke briefly with her - he was in her mainstream class back when he was at the elementary school, and her words to me were, "We were heartbroken when he moved to the middle school!!"

Yes!!!

It was such a joy to me, too, to see Krassi, prompted by my, "Krassi, do you want to say Hi?" raise his hand in greeting to her, and more importantly, his eyes. I am so proud of that boy! Making eye contact, or even looking at inanimate objects directly, is still something that does not come naturally to him, but we keep working at it, and he keeps getting better.

Here's Krassi showing off his great eye contact at the circus!

 He's a cool kid. ;) Then, of course, as we left the library, he kind of blew that persona as he fell to pieces sobbing because I told him that he had to leave the hard plastic bunny toy at the library and he could play with it again next week. Those times are still kind of a kick in the gut as it flashes me back to his past - so many years of deprivation of any sort of stimulation that having to give up a toy causes a sort of panic in him, even five years later. How I ache for that hurting little boy.

And yet...it's taken time, but look how far he's come.