Last Wednesday was Cordy’s first day of school, and while she had a lot of anxiety over it – like she does about anything new – I was feeling just as much anxiety as I stood next to her waiting for her bus. She tried her best to be calm about the whole thing as she tried to hold still while I took a million photos.

My thoughts, though, went something like this: Would she throw a fit about riding the bus? Would she melt down when she got to school and couldn’t go to the room she was in last year? Would kindergarten be too hard for her? Would her new teacher treat her well? Would I be able to stop asking myself questions long enough to notice she’s getting on the bus?

Oh. Well, uh, that was easy.

I went to sleep for the day, expecting to hear the phone ring at some point with some question or complaint about Cordy’s behavior. But there was no call.

When the bus brought her home, she was clearly tired but full of smiles. She said her first day had been great, and when asked if she wanted to go back again the next day, she replied with her usual, “Well, uh, yeah, that would be OK.”

The note from her teacher gave me a lot of hope. The teacher said she had a good day, and she mentioned Cordy seemed to have good reading skills when they were assessing her abilities.

The next day was much the same. The note home was even more promising, stating that Cordy was asked to read a 1st grade level book and had no trouble with it.

Friday was even better. The teacher was both surprised and delighted to report that Cordy read another 1st grade level book and answered the comprehension questions perfectly. She mentioned that Cordy is still whining whenever she’s asked to do something, but other than that she’s adjusting to the new routine with no trouble.

Of course, I have no idea if the teacher is glossing over any actual behavior problems or not. But I don’t doubt that Cordy is impressing her with her reading skills. We’ve suspected she could read for some time now, but when pressed to show off her skills she generally pretended like she couldn’t read. (How modest.) I’m honestly more surprised that the teacher is surprised. Surely she’s read Cordy’s evaluation report and knows that her autism has little influence over her cognitive abilities.

I’m outlandishly happy that Cordy is adjusting so well to kindergarten. Crazy, over-the-moon happy.

More than once I’ve encountered people who assume that just because Cordy has autism, she will somehow never be able to learn anything, will never graduate, and will spend her life dependent on her family. Autism seems to be a death sentence to them, or at least the death of any kind of promising future. When we first got the diagnosis, I remember mourning her potential, too, worried that she would never be able to live a “normal” life. But it’s soooo not true.

Cordy’s autism may affect the way her brain functions, but it doesn’t affect her ability to function. She can still learn, she can understand logic at an age-appropriate level, and while she has some unusual sensitivities and requires some different methods to learn, she can keep up with her peers in classwork.

Even I don’t always understand the way Cordy thinks, but she still manages to figure everything out. She resisted learning to read when we attempted to work with her, instead choosing to teach herself. She doesn’t appear to understand phonetics, and as best I can tell, she reads by memorizing entire words. But she still learns it all, even if it’s not how most people do it.

I like to think of it this way: just because most of us take the interstate to get to the park doesn’t mean that taking the back roads won’t also get you there. It might take a little longer, and your travel experience will certainly be different, but you’ll reach the same destination. 

Cordy’s travels to the park probably involve singing “My Way” with Frank Sinatra as she cruises along the twisting, hilly roads. But once there, you know she’ll have stories of a great adventure along the way.

Cordy begins kindergarten next week. I know many moms tear up at the thought of the start of “formal” school, and I’m holding in the water works, too, although for different reasons. After all, Cordy’s nearly six years old – she could have started kindergarten last year, but Aaron and I made the choice to give her one more year to prepare, holding firm in our belief that she would be ready for a mainstream classroom this year.

My tears come at the reality that she will be in a special-needs kindergarten class this year. I didn’t want this. I’ve spent the last three years convincing myself that everything will be just peachy for Cordy when she gets to kindergarten, that all of this intensive therapy and special-needs preschool will produce a child who will glide into a kindergarten classroom of typical children, place her safety scissors and crayons in her desk just like everyone else and blend right in with the crowd.

Message from reality, ma’am. It says: stop being a twit and take a hard look at yourself, ya weirdo. Blend in? Ha.

Stupid thinking, I know, but we were told so often over the last three years that the goal was for Cordy to mainstream at kindergarten. Goals aren’t promises, though, autism isn’t something that just disappears when she reaches kindergarten and I need to stop treating it like it is.

I didn’t fully accept it when we were told last spring that Cordy needed to stay in a special-needs classroom, and I still struggle with accepting it today. Every “but…” springs to my mind. But she’s smart. (Dumb excuse – there are plenty of smart special-needs kids!) But we’re told all the teachers in the school love her and think she’s so sweet. But she spent a summer in a class with typical kids and had no issues at all. But we didn’t have a single meltdown ALL summer. But she doesn’t qualify for speech therapy any longer, and occupational therapy has been reduced to only as-needed. How can they say she belongs in a class of special-needs-only kids?

Still they insist she isn’t ready, and they also explain that she is on an “inclusion track” where they will try to slowly introduce her to mainstream kindergarten. I’m sure this is brilliantly successful for some kids (and know it works very well for introducing animals to new situations), but I don’t know how well this will work for Cordy. After all, part of her autism is her desire for routine. She can handle transitions with some warning, and is even getting better at adjusting to small sudden change, but constant major changes seem like a big deal to me.

So we’re going to get her used to one classroom for several weeks, then expect her to go behave in another class, with a wildly different routine, for 15-30 minutes every day or two, and yank her out if she doesn’t cooperate? Um, I know I’m not an expert at this, but I think she’s going to not cooperate. Just a hunch here.

My idea was to put her in a mainstream class, accept that the first few weeks will be an adjustment (just like any kid starting kindergarten, I’d guess), providing aide support if needed, and then watch as she adapts and rises to the challenge. After all, it worked this summer – she is a smart kid, and she can figure out how to act if given the chance to learn how the class works. Coddling or baby steps generally doesn’t work for her – she’s more a “sink or swim” kind of girl. (Even if she does get mighty upset about being – figuratively – shoved in the water sometimes.)

But I’m only her mother, and it’s been made clear that I don’t understand how the system works. So I will (grudgingly, and with a lot of hovering) let them do it their way for now and evaluate the results in a couple of months. If it isn’t working to our satisfaction, or if I feel Cordy is falling behind academically in any way (and she’s already well ahead of the standard kindergarten curriculum), we’ll be calling her support team together and finding another option.

And if it turns out that this was the perfect way to do it, you’ll all be reading my admission of being wrong. In this case, I want to be wrong. I want to write an embarrassed apology on this blog for my incorrect assumptions and how silly it was to not trust the experts.

I really, really, really hope I’m completely off-base and Cordy rocks the inclusion track all the way to full inclusion faster than any other student they’ve ever had. I hope she’s such the perfect model for the inclusion track that academic papers are written about her experience.

Nothing would make me happier than being wrong. And knowing Cordy, she’ll find some way to do it, because she’s just that damn awesome, and she loves to prove me wrong.