Cougar of the Week!

Man it's been exciting around here lately! I'm almost afraid to pinch myself for fear I'll wake up from this dreamland of wonderness (like my new word?). Yesterday Beans hopped off the van from school just beaming. He had a paper clutched in his hand, but I couldn't see what it was from the doorway.

He bounced into the house, and I asked him the normal, "How was your day?" The smile erupted as his eyes beamed and he said he got Cougar of the Week! (Student of the Week) He's been hoping and hoping for this award since school started. As part of the award, he got to go on the school TV program that morning, got to choose a friend to eat lunch on stage in the cafeteria (he said he had a hard time choosing - he wanted to choose R and B and E and T, but he could only have one so he chose H - another amazing moment for me, He Has Friends!!!), and then he brought home his Cougar of the Week certificate.

I immediately hung the certificate on our board to honor him. Every time something like this happens - from the "smaller" ones of 100% on a spelling test, a new friend, who he played with at free time, to the bigger ones like Cougar of the Week - I sit back in awe. The little boy who used to hate people, who hid or screamed if they talked to him, who learned so much in preschool with the most amazing teachers ever, who backslid in kindergarten but has gone back to those skills he learned in the autistic school, has now launched. Nothing can stop him now and I sit back and realize how lucky we are.