eSpecially Ben

For the past three years, Ben has been on the bus with the same brother and sister. Since they get on before Ben and after he gets off, I see them twice a day and have become friendly with them. About two years ago, we had them over for a playdate. Their Dad came too. Ryan and I learned about their tough circumstances. In the short time we spent with this family, it became obvious that the Dad worked hard to make their situation work. Although I tried many times to get the kids together again, it never worked out. Over a year later, on Halloween, the Dad stopped by our house. To ask for a relatively small amount of money. I gave it to him and asked that instead of repaying us, he bring the kids over for a playdate. He agreed and they came the next week. Then six months later, the Dad stopped by to borrow a tool for a job. We gave it to him. Today he came by and left us a note explaining that he was going out of town. I guess he was letting us know he still had the tool and

I get a report about Ben's progress almost 6 times a week from each of the therapists, after every session. Most of it is mundane information about what they did, how well the session went, how hard Ben worked, how hard Ben worked them, what equipment may need to be fixed, etc. But today, although the setting was the same and the speech therapist was giving his report as usual - he seemed to be saying something new. Or perhaps I was hearing it differently. Basically he said, Ben knows his name - he can identify it. There is no need to work on that goal. Well, I knew that from Ben's IEP meeting in January, but it was good to hear from an outside source that this was, in fact, true information. The speech therapist also said that Ben has met the goal to identify articles of clothing (shoes, socks, pants, shirt) from both pictures and actual items. Then he said Ben knows his numbers, 0-9. His next step was to help Ben learn his colors. The therapist said that when Ben pays a