The special ones

Today was special ed PE in three different schools and the kind of day I love best!  Short snippets of a lot of different things.

First I got to work with the Autism Princess, as her pink, sparkley shirt with the crown on it declared her.  "Work" isn't really accurate, I suppose, since I spent the entire time swinging on the swings and chasing the Princess over, under, and through the playground equipment while she hopped, jumped, bounced, laughed and  sang "She'll Be Comin'  Round the Mountain" at the very tippy top if her Princess lungs.

Next came  the teeniest tiniest little peanut of cuteness I've ever seen.   She couldn't really do any of the warm ups but happily participated just the same; flapping and flopping her very best jumping jacks.  She especially seemed to enjoy tossing a hula hoop over the frozen children during mosquito tag.  It was very sweet to see the other kids look like mimes going against the wind as they ran slow enough for my peanut to tag them when it was her turn to be the mosquito with the swim noodle stinger stuck on her forehead.

How bout that little guy I got to follow around during the game of indoor baseball?  He kept stretching his green pinney over his face, distorting his features like when you pull one leg of panty hose over your head.  I think he liked me because when we were waiting our turn to bat he kept smashing the back of my hand into the side of his head as hard as he could.

I was unprepared for my last student of the day; a little girl who apparently isn't a huge fan of the frog game as she ran, screaming, from the gym.  I had directions on what to do if she screamed but nothing about the running part.  I'm not allowed, by law, to restrain her at all so all I could do was follow her screaming self back to her room where she stopped screaming and calmly sat back down in her seat to watch TV.   The special ed teacher was there so I asked her what I could do if she bolts again since I'm not allowed to restrain.  Her very helpful answer; "Well, we generally don't allow her to do that".  Oh snap!   I wish I had thought of that.  A special ed aide came to the rescue and walked down to the gym with us.  My girl cried and cried and made her hand into a puppet that kept saying "bye friends" over and over.  The aide wouldn't listen to the hand though, and made my girl run and run and run with the other children.  When she took off down the hall again the aide was able to physically stop her.   Apparently my girl has come a very long way since the beginning of the year.   I can't even imagine.

There is a very special place in heaven for people who work every day with the specialest of the special ones.