An Exceptional Olympics Celebration

Last Friday I took the day off work to celebrate the last Exceptional Olympics that our son participated in as a high school student.  It is an event for special needs students of area school in our county.

It was a somewhat emotional day watching the kid grow up.  It used to be that he was the ONLY student from our school district to participate.  There was no special ed. program for him.  We kept him in the district and he was in mainstream classes vs. bussing him to another school with an inclusion room.  He did have an IEP (individual education plan) he whole school career.  We managed to get reading and math small group situations.  But look at all of the students behind him that are now part of this event!  We feel we blazed a trail for this one-day event.

The photo below shows the graduating seniors this year from different school districts.  Our son always has the great idea to wear a bright hat or colors so that we can easily spot him.  We have done this since he could walk.

And now the super teary part...  I can't even type this without getting emotional.  As we were sitting in the bleachers waiting for the event to start, a lady sat behind me and asked me if I was his mom.  I said, "Look at him, of course I'm his mom--waving and cheering to him from the stands..."

She introduced herself.  I still had no idea who she was and how she was involved with our family.  All of a sudden she told me that she worked in the fertility lab where our son was conceived!!!  (Our son was a third-try IVF baby!) Of course she did it very quietly as to not upset our privacy.

She said that she remembers the day that after our son was born that I so proudly brought him to the office to show and THANK everybody there involved.  She remembered the Christmas cards that I sent to the office each year showing our little miracle and thanking them.

She said you'd be surprised how many parents come back to the lab saying something like, "Oh I wish our kid would have brown hair..." but specifically remembered me as to being so thankful that we had a baby.

We talked about very specific things that we both remembered.  She said that our family was on of the families that made her job worth while.  She had looked for me at various events.  It was meant to be that we were together for this event, as it was his last one.

Happy tears were flowing all around.  My sister-in-law was crying and didn't even know the details.  This just goes to show how much our kid has touch hearts.  We are so proud of him.

This year they let our son pick which teacher would attend the event with him.  The guy in the blue coat is amazing.  He retired last year as a high school teacher.  He came back to work as an aide/part time. He is well loved in our community and very involved in high school sports such as track and cross country.

Here's our son with two of his buddies.  We take a photo like this every year!

They did the hula hoop.  Events were quite simple this year due to the fact that it was held at a different facility than usual.  Items were easy to carry to different spots on the field.  But it was still fun for them.

Limbo-- how low can you go.  See how his teacher is such a good sport?

the 50-yard dash...

Of course where ever we go, our kid makes it on the jumbotron--ALWAYS!

This next set of photos is kinda a thorn in my side.  They were taken inside the school.  The room they were taken was designed to be a special needs classroom with stoves, washers, dryers, fridge, ironing board, kitchen appliances...  My father-in-law was the building superintendent when the school was built.  It was a room where students could be taught life skills...

Unfortunately a predominant family in the community thought that the room was not utilized as it should and named the room after themselves.  They got rid of all of the things that would actually teach someone like our son something useful and put fancy tables and chairs and a backdrop in the room.  It is now used for photo ops for when a kid signs a scholarship or into the military.  

At least our kid got to use it one time (vs. the many useful times he could have used it had it been used for the original intention) to sign the school banner that we donated to the school so that they could use it for future Exceptional Olympic event.  Guess that's just water under the bridge.

Now that we blazed the trail to have a special needs room and more special needs students are staying at our school, hopefully they will put some life skill items in the other side of the room to teach future students.  Luckily our son has learned a ton of life skills from his parents.