#autism #diarypost
I love Proms Week at D's school, it's a week-long activity where the majority of classes perform at least one song/piece of music.
D has been at her special needs school for 3 years now and I've gone to the last 2 years. I remember spending the most of the first one in tears - of pride.
It's nerve-racking enough to stand up in front of a busy school hall and perform anyway, but factor in the complexities of a special needs child and it was humbling to watch. I remember having total admiration for the staff, gently coaxing children into the stage, they'd do their performance and - in some cases - run off as soon as they were finished.
Today was wonderful, there was a class of older children performing "Blue Suede Shoes", there were singing/drumming/keyboard/sax solos.
Another young adult performed a rap song that he'd composed and written himself, it was all about how he felt intimidated but performed his martial arts and his head became clearer and he felt stronger inside. I must admit he reminded me of an older version of T.
Then came D's two performances. The first was a duet with another child, my girl stood there holding the microphone and sang strongly and clearly, if she'd hadn't been looking at me all the way through I think the tears (mine) would have flowed.
The song they performed was one they started practising last October, so it's been a long, gentle process. Immensely proud of her, to put it mildly. She did say to me afterwards that she "felt shy but then started singing and felt better".
Their class performance was on xylophones of the "William Tell overture" and they all wore special hats they'd made themselves.
Each performed as a group and then working from colour-coded music sheets with a few solo bars. Lovely to hear and watch.
D was delighted that she could leave school with me - about 15 minutes early - unfortunately her other performance is mid-morning later on this week and she's worked out that she won't be able to leave with me afterwards. It has caused a lot of tears and anguish tonight.
I was hoping that she'd sing her song for Hubbie, who wasn't able to attend today, but anxieties overtook her. Plenty of other evenings though.
Her last activity tonight has been planting the cabbage seeds we received yesterday at the Cabbage Patch Kids party, a very meticulous and systematic careful planting, hopefully a few seeds will sprout.
T's not had the best of days, a combination of a promised athletics badge having been assured for over two weeks and still not materialising and another child copying his work and attempting to get him into trouble has meant that he's been a tad short tempered. Lots of self-regulatory bouncing in the trampoline needed. Crossing my fingers that tomorrow will be better for him.
That would be us then, a day closer to the school holidays and counting. I hope everyone's had a good day, comments/RTs/shares as ever welcomed, thanks for reading Jx 😘
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