September 22

A big step today - Billy is at Outdoor Ed with his 5th grade class until Wednesday afternoon. It's a trip that the 5th graders take every year. They go to a campus about an hour from here and learn about things in nature - animals, plants, things in the water, etc. He was excited to go. We worked it out so that at night, Bill or I would drive out to the campus to spend the night with him. He has a hard time settling down at night and we feared if he were put in a room with 10 other students that he might keep them awake at night if he couldn't quiet down or if he had insomnia (not uncommon for him). They gave us a chaperone room where we could stay with Billy by ourselves.

I arrived about 9:30 pm. Billy was playing cards with another boy (who, I determined about 30 seconds after meeting, also has autism). This boy's dad was also there and he and his dad were staying by themselves in a chaperone room next to us. Anyway, I talked to Billy's assistant who told me he'd had a good day. They did a Water Study class that day. I guess Billy's foot got stuck in some muck and he fell into the river on the campus. When I got into his room, his dirty, wet clothes were hanging up, drying out. Mrs S told me he was doing well and participating in everything so far - even the game of Alpha Wolf that the kids played after their night hike. Alpha Wolf is a game that they play in the dark, in the woods (supervised, of course).

Billy and I went into his room for the night. There is nothing to do there - no electronics allowed - so we just put on our pajamas and settled down. We were in bunk beds, him on top and me on the bottom. After we'd laid there for awhile, I heard him whisper to his stuffed dog, "Isn't this great, Lucky?". Put a HUGE smile on my face =)