Now that Solly is settled in at school, we’ve been working on moving his therapy appointments to during school hours so his therapists can work with him in his classroom. This helps his teachers learn about some of the things he’s working on, but also teaches his peers more about Solly, like how to best communicate with him. While parents have the option to come back to the school to sit in on therapy appointments, we recently discovered that Solly can focus better during therapy if we aren’t present, so we’re starting to limit the appointments that we attend.

Today was the first day where his speech and feeding appointments fell during the school hours and where I chose not to attend. This afternoon, I got this email from Solly’s speech therapist:

“At 10:30am, Solly was in circle time, so I stayed in the classroom with him. I have to tell you a precious moment I witnessed while in the classroom. During circle time, they sing a song where Emma (Solly’s teacher) calls on a child, and that child has to choose a peer, walk up, greet the peer, and say ‘Hello ____! Good morning to you!’ and shake his/her hand.

A girl in the class chose Solly as her friend to greet. I held Solly’s speech device to his side and pointed and said to him: ‘You can tell her ‘Hello!’ on here or say it using your mouth.’ His friend replied: ‘He knows what to do! We are already good friends.’

I love how his friends are already advocating for him! Go Solly!”

This email made my day. My week, really. It’s little moments like these where I am so incredibly thankful for an inclusive environment and hopeful for a future where everyone will see Solly for who he really is.

Unrelated photo, but too cute not to share.

What I’m Reading

• The email above reminded me of this excellent Ted Talk: Love Story: Seeing Beyond the Disability! 
• Also, speaking of Solly speaking with his classmates, here’s another article from earlier this year on speech recovery after a perinatal stroke: Babies get strokes, too. Here’s how their brains recover.