Lucas Camilo

Yesterday was Lucas’s last day of preschool, and it was the culmination of a pretty spectacular school term.  This spring Lucas has made big strides in his own unique way.  He’s been able to read big words and count and sort shapes and colors forever.  But over the past couple months he’s gained physical stamina so that he can participate more fully in the full school day, shouting out answers in circle time and singing along with his classmates with more volume.   Of course we don’t get to see all that, but we have our eyes (his nurses) who report back to us each day about his remarkable energy at school, even on the days he hasn’t slept much.  And what we get to see is a kid bubbling with excitement as he gets off the school bus.  He’s sometimes so excited to tell us about his day that he’s trying tell us three things at once all as the lift is still lowering him down off the bus.

And after a year of rough starts and set-backs with his power-chair driving (he works on learning to drive 2-3 times a week at school with his physical therapist, Joan), these past few months he has been making major progress.  Krista was able to go a few times to watch, and Lucas showed off the skills he’s been mastering – driving through doorways, following directions, and most importantly stopping.  Of course it’s still at a tortoise pace, and he still enjoys crashing his “tank” into the wall a little too much,  but other than that he’s mastered driving.  He even knows his right and left and will navigate based on directions.  Lucas beamed with pride when Krista told him that he did his best driving ever.  Of course he still hasn’t sorted out his pronouns, so he replied with an enthusiastic “you did your best driving EVER!,” talking about himself.

A few weeks ago we got the news that Lucas did get a spot at Orca, the public K-8 school near our home that we picked out as our top choice for Lucas.  We’re really excited to have Lucas going to a school in the neighborhood, and we’re excited about the staff we’ve met so far.  It feels like the right decision, but it made graduation day from Lowell extra sad.  The staff at Lowell, where Lucas could have stayed for elementary school, loves Lucas so much.  He spends almost as much time with his therapy team – Joan, Kim, Terri, and Elspeth – as he does with his teacher, and all them have gotten to know and appreciate Lucas so much, and they have gone out of their way to help him.

Lucas, never one for nostalgia or transition anxiety, happily told everyone that he was graduating from preschool, that he would be a kindergartner next year, and that he’d be going to Orca.  No big deal.

The graduation ceremony was beautiful in the way any group of 3-5 year olds trying to act in a coordinated way is amazing.  A teacher played pomp and circumstance on the cello as the kids walked, waddled, and wheeled in to the cafeteria.  They sat on the stage and sang three songs, and a few of them couldn’t help but get up and spin around, or do a couple belly flops, or cry.  Lucas apparently belted the songs out in the rehearsal, but with a cafeteria full of parents and grandparents watching through their smart phones, Lucas got stage fright and barely mumbled his way through the songs.   And when his teacher presented him with his certificate, he cried.

Every day before Lucas leaves the house for school he picks an animal to take, and he clutches it most of the day.  Yesterday was no exception, so he was holding his zebra. After a hug did little to console him, his nurse showed him how his zebra was nibbling on his ear, and things got better.  And then Lucas got a present (“you want to open it!!!”) from his physical therapists, and he was thrilled to see it was a Dr. Seuss book.  And pretty soon he was back to making jokes.  One of his favorites lately is to turn anything into a dinosaur name (“librarianasaurus,” or “silly-a-saurus.”)  So yesterday he beamed as he called himself the “Graduasaurus”.