Opening the Door

Yesterday - Tuesday morning, September 4, 2007 - was a big day here in this household. My son got up early to come down and have coffee with his sister and me just so he could be here with us to see our little Princess, Maya, off on the beginning of what I hope, for her, will be her finest adventure.

Maya started school yesterday. She's attending a school over by Clearfield - in Hyde - in a class of seven other children, who like her, are all on the autism spectrum.

We were a bit worried how she would react to getting into the minivan and leaving us behind in a trail of gravel and dust. When the driver pulled up in front of the house though, we were all out there to help get her settled into the car seat. She was happy, smiling - being a real trooper - even gave each of us big, big kisses good by too. And as Mandy pulled the van door shut, the look on her face then seemed to change to one of a little bit of confusion as well as some consternation there. It appeared that she was having some second thoughts as to what the heck was really going on there.

As a matter of fact, the look on her face was something like this one - taken two months ago at our family reunion where she met more people than one could shake a stick at that day, all who are related to us but at her age, she has no clue about things like that.
Although we didn't see her cry when the van pulled away and the driver told Mandy yesterday afternoon when he brought her home that she'd been fine, I can't quite say the same thing for Maya's Mommy, her Grammie or her Uncle Clate, as all three of us had tear-filled eyes as we made our way back into the house to begin waiting for her return.

Mandy and I didn't get any still photos of Maya yesterday although she did get some video of her ready to leave the house to wait for the bus. Uncle Clate however did get a really cute picture of her with his cell phone, once she was all strapped into the car seat and ready to roll.
Now if he could just figure out how to send that picture to me, I could have posted it here!

This morning though, Maya was still excited about going back to school. She got dressed and was ready and waiting for Mandy to take her out to wait for the van to arrive and pick her up. I went out to stand by the road with them and when I saw the van rounding the curve up above our place, I told Maya to look. When she did, she immediately recognized the van and said "There he is. Mr. Fred!" (Her driver's name is Fred so we taught her to call him "Mr. Fred.")

She got into the van, no problems. Mandy strapped her in, no problems. She gave Mandy a big kiss too. Then I asked her if she had a good bye kiss for Gram and her response was "All done, all done!" Guess I know where I stand in the general scheme of things.

Mandy pulled the door closed and we were waving good by to a little girl with a smile across her face, from ear-to-ear! A very happy little camper. Kind of like on these pictures taken a couple weeks ago.










And not to be outdone in the happiness department, here's little Kurtis who is reveling now in getting lots and lots of undivided attention while Maya is away at school. He's getting a lot more play time out on the floor instead of being relegated mainly to the playpen out of safety concerns when Maya is here and has her stuff strewn all over the floors - wall-to-wall, ya know!