Graduation Day

For Summit Speech School's Class of 2009. Not Micah. He'll be graduating from Summit, provided our school district continues to renew his IEP, in June 2011. Five kids are moving on and into the mainstream.

Graduation was tied to the theme for the week, bugs. The school's director did an amazing job weaving bugs into her graduation address, using Eric Carle's The Hungry Caterpillar as her focus. We, the parents of children with deafness and hearing impairment, are like the hungry caterpillars, searching for and devouring all the informatin that will help our children. And somehow, we are fortunate to have our children come here, and into Summit's protective coccoon. Today is the day that five beautiful children emerge from the coccoon, ready to take on the challenges of mainstream education. I was totally verklemmt, and my child wasn't even graduating.

Then the children came in, paired up, followed by the individual graduates wearing white caps with orange tassels.

After pulling it together, my focus became, "Please God, don't let Micah misbehave while up on the stage." He made a few monkey faces, did not exactly perform on cue - I think that he'd worn himself out on singing "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee" while riding in my car over the last week, but overall he was a good boy. He was also within arms reach of one of the teachers or aides (wise move on their part.)

Come July 1, the start of the ESY for those fortunate enough to have Extended School Year in their IEPs, Micah will be moving to Miss Margie's room along with his friends Tom and Ava. His current teacher is wonderful, and with the SLPs, has gotten so much from Micah. I will miss her emails and her amazingly upbeat and optimistic outlook; Micah is also a little nervous about the change - he wants Miss Heather to come with him to his new room. The ESY will also bring a new bus or van driver into our lives, the amazing team of Bob and Diane take the summer off.

After graduation and the reception afterwards, I had planned to take the kids to Rainforest Cafe at the Menlo Park Mall. Until we actually got there, and Micah was a little intimidated by the animatronic snake wiggling overhead and sticking its tongue out, but he marched forward and we were being seated when Thea decided the trees scared her and she was having no parts of the place. Back to the car, and off to Bertucci's. The next time I go to Menlo Park, I am taking myself to The Cheesecake Factory. Alone. Or maybe with a book.

Today we finally had some sunshine in the afternoon, so we hauled out the small pool and a few bottles of bubble goop and just had some water fun. And I even pulled out the laptop and got a bunch of correspondence read, labs reviewed/letters sent and prescriptions renewed.

Tomorrow is the orthopedist appointment, and he'd better give me back my knee, and it doesn't have to be like-new, wonderful. I'd settle for my old crappy knee, just without the pain or the need for the icky neoprene knee brace.