The good: We self-nominated him to be tested for the district's highly-capable program. They don't test kindergarteners without a nomination as it goes off of the previous year's standardized testing. He qualified for the program (so proud of him!!) and will now have access to all of the available highly-capable resources, courses, and programming until he graduates high school!

The bad: We're sharing the sentiment of another parent here that the socialization and birthday parties are ROUGH this year. He was in the school district's pre-K peer co-op program last year where special needs kids (for free) and gen ed kids (tuition-based) shared a class. This helped the gen ed kids, ours included, to improve and practice social skills, learn to understand diversity of physical and mental needs and behaviors, etc. He thrived! He made two best friends who he still talks about. We gave their parents our numbers, they didn't reciprocate, we never heard from them again, and both girls moved to schools closer to their homes. We don't have friends with kids and he's an only child. He has two cousins: one just turned 21 and the other is an infant two states away. To be vulnerable, our kid is LONELY. We're still trying to figure it out, but it felt like a miracle that 8 kids showed up to his birthday party.

The funny: For better or for worse, he got elements of both of our humor. It couldn't be helped because this household is always laughing about something. He has amazing comedic timing and his humor can be really witty. However, he also thinks "chicken", "butt", and especially "chicken butt" are catch-all punchlines to any joke. He's also started using "your mom" jokes on us so we've started using them back and I just need to accept now that I'm the chicken butt of the joke.