That’s been a common sentence from Daphne on her talker over the past few days, which is a heartening thing to hear, particularly when we follow up with, “are you happy to be back in school?” and get a quick “Yes.” in reply.

And I’m also happy to report that Daphne has had a great couple of first days.

One of the larger worries we had at the outset of the year was the lack of a bathroom in all the 3rd grade classrooms. That’s a thing we hadn’t considered until they told us Daphne would have to use the shared bathrooms, and as such she’d need to communicate her need to go to her aide.

You’ll recall that the whole thing was pretty touch and go this summer, with us consistently asking/reminding Daphne about peeing in the potty. As such, there is indeed cause for concern there.

Now Daphne does, of course, have a button on her talker that conveys, “I need to use the potty,” but she’s yet to use it meaningfully, despite our modeling. (Although we should try to model that one a bit more often…)

So far, according to her aide’s notes anyway, she’s conveyed her need to go potty by simply pointing to the classroom door and responding “yes” to the subsequent toilet query.

And over the first two days, there have been zero accidents. Which is cause for celebration as I knock on my wooden desk.

As a matter of fact we’ve only received a couple frown-worthy reports so far.
First, Daphne has already dropped trou and flashed the classroom once. Now I’ll admit that we weren’t quite as diligent about this as we might’ve been otherwise this summer. Most times we were just happy that she was micturating in the proper receptacle and not all over the couch/chair/floor/her father.
However, as the opportunity arises, we’ll remind her again that we only take off our clothes after we’re in the bathroom…not along the way. (Despite how obviously efficient it might seem.)

The other issue was that she apparently lobotomized her teacher’s green foam “brain ball” by biting a large chunk out of its parietal lobe.

Otherwise everything seems to be going pretty great. She’s already had a dance party, eaten her lunch in the cafeteria with the rest of her class, and attended the school assembly in the gymnasium. (Which was undoubtedly quite loud for her…)

So, we’re cautiously hopeful about this year. And, most importantly, Daphne seems to be happy each morning as she walks into school…which we have to believe is the best overall sign of how things are going.

See you tomorrow.

j.s.