Good Bye to Preschool

Nathan's preschool had their end of the year party yesterday. Actually I should say their end of the year party for part of the class. The preschool is actually sponsered by the school district (not common) and is on the campus of a local elementary school. It is mainly for high functioning autistic kids, but they have a handful of typical kids to act as peer models. Nathan was one of the peer models and it his role (along with the other typical kids) to just be themselves and socialize with everyone in the class. It was very interesting, especially since half of the time I didn't know which kids were autistic and which were typical. I definetly want to have Joshua be in the same class, especially if Ms. Lara is still there; she was great. I also hope that Nathan has learned a little about accepting people who are different from him. I didn't tell him in the begining that there was anything different about any of the other kids in his class; I didn't want to prejudice him or get him confused. But it has come up a little bit in these last few months when he has asked why so and so doesn't talk very much, and other questions along the same line. I know that Nathan likes all his classmates and that he doesn't really see anything wrong with them. One of his favorite classmates is a little boy who is not as high functioning as some of the others. Nathan will usually say goodbye specifically to him and give him a hug. Tama usually just makes a noise and pushes Nathan away, but Nathan doesn't seem to mind.

Yesterday was a good bye party for the peer models and it was at a place called "Pump it Up," a small ware house type space with four inflatable party jumpers and other structures. It included a large slide, an obstacle course, and a multi use jumper along with a regular jumper. It was a lot of fun and we were all tired afterward. The party ended with pizza and other goodies. Just what a buch of 4 and 5 year olds love.