A week from yesterday, the Monster starts school.

If I seem like I’m counting it down, I’m not really doing that – I don’t think I quite know what to think or feel about the fact that he’s going off to start public school on Monday.  I guess I just somewhat figured it’d be at least another year down the line, like everyone else’s kids.

That said, I obviously have my hopes and thoughts about the coming school year.  I’ll not touch on the stability of his schedule again, since I keep harping on that.

One thing I am looking forward to is seeing how being in the school environment might help with his communication skills.  I’m still convinced that the biggest issue is that the Monster can’t really verbalize what he’s thinking.  When he was in PIES, we saw a major improvement in the few months he was there, even twice a week, so I’m thinking personally that being in the educational environment, one specially designed for children like him, five days a week, is going to help him.

I’m also hoping that the small class size, with staff who are used to children with his issues, might also help with his socialization.  I’ve just been very unsuccessful at getting him to play and keep his attention on games, so maybe they’ll come up with things that they can share that get him to engage.  (This has been a problem at swim classes as well, though there’s only been the one time I’ve gone and I don’t know if the wife’s given them any additional pointers on what kinds of phrasing he listens to.)

School’s also throwing a monkey wrench into all of his extra-curricular activities, though.  His outside therapy and gymnastics are both currently in hours where he’s going to be in school, and there aren’t a lot of therapy places that have late hours on weekdays.  The wife’s identified one that might have places for kids and is open into the evening on weekdays, and we might just have to bite the bullet and move his gymnastics to weekends if they have availability.

The only frustration I have so far is that we are a week out, without any idea of what time his bus will come and without any contact from his teacher.  Maybe I’m just expecting too much, but I don’t know…