Caden's First Day of School

He did great!  He was a little worried his book bag was too big.  He was going to leave it in the car, but then he saw all the other kids had bags the same size so he grabbed it at the last minute.  He was so confident and just walked right in and started working on his paper.  I tried to take a picture of him, but he was trying to shoo me away and the other boys were starting to run amok, so fuzzy is the best you get.  He'll be attending Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9:30-12.  There are 20 little kids in his class, managed by two wonderful teachers.  Throughout the 2.5 hours he is there they rotate between being in groups of 10 or groups of 4.

I am so relieved.  In December and January I drafted a list of nearly 100 preschools.  I called and interviewed 53 of them.  I toured 6.  I narrowed it down to 1.  I calculated my time and estimated it took approximately 300 hours to find a preschool that would be a good fit for my medically needy child.  Some wouldn't even consider taking him; others simply used food in the classroom too much.  I eliminated all schools that had only one teacher on site because I felt in an emergency one adult to care for Caden and one adult to care for the others would be best.  Even after all that I was still apprehensive about the school year.

Then in August I got a phone call from Caden's teacher to discuss Caden's medical needs more in depth.  When I told her he has an EGID she paused, then said, "I know you'll think I'm crazy, but I know what that is.  My niece has that."  Turns out I know who her niece is.  The niece lives in Texas and used to be in Emilee's ward.  Another mini miracle.  She wasn't overwhelmed when I showed her the emergency pack and trained her on how to use everything.  And she has a good handle on the emotional impacts of using food in the classroom and how to best make accommodations.  For example, at the open house each child got a treat for visiting.  Caden's 'treat' (a small plastic dinosaur) was packaged to look exactly like all the other treats, and it was given to him from the same location all the other treats were given from.  No one but the teachers and I knew he was different, and that means the world to him.