After School

Our kids do A LOT at school! Even typical kids are negotiating peer and teacher relationships, learning academics, figuring out who to sit with at lunch, deciding what to do at recess, packing up their things and hopefully keeping track of all of their stuff (a mom can dream).

For our special kiddos, add specialists popping into their classroom to help them with the regular ed content. There are speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists. They interact with special ed teachers and social workers and their peers, both typical and special.  

And…

Social interactions in general are hard for them. Academics may be really challenging. Deciding what to do at recess might be downright paralyzing. Keeping track of their stuff may be completely impossible. But all the while, they’re also expected to keep their emotions under control and behave appropriately.

For Mikey, he never had one minute by himself. He had a one-on-one aide keeping him on task at all times and he sometimes interacted with 10-12 different adults in one day. Talk about exhausting! Even though these folks were truly wonderful and wanted the best for Mikey, when he got home from school, he was spent!

After school needed to be a time to decompress, de-stress, get a snack, get some time outside, find some time to play.  Michael’s homework was usually relatively light, but we didn’t even start it until we had taken some time to chill.

It’s the Mauro house, so chilling obviously happened with the dogs.  Mad props to Ruby for not devouring that whole bag of Pirate’s Booty! She was such a good girl!