A rare and wonderful day

Today was Isaac's first day back at school after being home sick for two days.  He got up once in the night (2am), so I had to wake the lazy bones up at 8am to get ready for school.  This is never my preference as that only leaves us a very small window of time to get through our morning routine.  I was expecting a kicking, whining fight as I got him dressed while he was still eating his breakfast.  Nope, complete cooperation.  "Isaac we gotta get ready for school.  You have gym class today! (insert overly-cheery voice)"
"Yeah school! Woohoo!"  Insert me trying to hide my shocked look.

I put his shoes on.  He put his coat on.  I handed him his backpack and he earnestly tried to put it on himself before asking, "Help my backpack, please mommy?"  Insert raised eyebrows.  "Yes, since you asked so nicely..."  I bustle around trying to finish getting myself ready while he picks up some friends, little toy animals, for the ride to school.  "Look mommy, it's a box!  Thank you for the box, mommy."  He is holding a little tin box we let him have to transport his friends with.  "You're welcome..."  Again, who is this kid?  He finds a few more strays for the ride and then asks me in complete question form to put both the box and the strays in his backpack. And then says "thank you".  What did I feed this kid?

All the way to school he initiated conversation using decent sentences and pointed out things he saw out his window.  He answered most of my questions and gave me directions as to when to stop the car and which way to go to school.  It was surreal.  I got to ride to school with a true three year old.  MY three year old.


When we got to school I told Miss Minda that she was in for a good day.  He was in a remarkably good mood and talking up a storm.  She said that she's noticed an increase in his speech too- that once he gets through his script from movies, tv shows, and books he gets on topic.  I know I'm a dork, but this makes me all the more excited for the upcoming parent/teacher conferences.


Then Isaac and I arrived home and upon inspection of his school folder I found this:

OK, let me first say that Isaac is very good at sharing at home, within his comfort zone.  School is outside of his comfort zone so this is a big deal.  He has never received anything like this from school before.  Second, his report from school had checks only next to "I'm working on this" for both large and small group activities today.  This means he only needed one or two verbal prompts instead of the usual three or more.  *Fist pump*  When I brought out the teddy bear certificate to show him I asked him if he shared with Kara today and he answered, "Yes!  I need measuring tape (scotch tape), please.  Hang it up, please."
"Oh, do you want me to hang it on the front door?"
"YES!"
Here it is:

The rest of the afternoon has been sprinkled with more good communication and complete sentences.  It has been a rare and wonderful day.



Meanwhile, our other developmentally disabled child, Shilo the dog, is having a not-so-rare and un-wonderful day.  If I wasn't in such a good mood, all that mud he tracked in today would not be appreciated.  I am choosing to view this as a sign of spring, but he's definitely not getting a teddy bear certificate anytime soon.