Sorry for no updates lately. We’ve been swamped with graduation celebrations, work, work and more work, followed by work out in the yard.

But I’ve got some great videos and a few photos to share – one of which is really important.

Katy graduated from pre-school this week. This is such a bittersweet moment for us for two reasons: first, Katy has improved so much in the last year that it is impossible not to be happy with her experience in pre-school; but we’re also torn apart because we’re leaving that same group of therapists, teachers and assistants that made such a huge impact on my little girl’s life. We hope they know just how much we appreciate everything they did for Katy and for us. The daughter I have now is not the same girl who started pre-school two years ago. Here are a few photos from graduation.

Three of these photos are of Katy with Marcia, her music therapist. Just a couple of minutes before I took these, Katy was extremely upset. One of her classmates had started to cry during the “graduation” ceremony and once that starts, it’s really hard to stop Katy from reacting to it. Marcia, though, had her smiling and singing within about a minute and a half. We will miss Marcia so much next year. More than anyone over the past two years, Marcia discovered a way to get through to Katy and to make learning fun. More than that, she discovered ways for Katy’s other teachers and therapists to relate to her as well. Monumental is not to big a word to describe her impact on my little girl’s life.

Now, on to the big video from graduation. She doesn’t seem very happy here (even though I’m smiling from ear to ear watching her), because it’s been a long day. By this time, she has already visited her new school for next year and played with her teachers and therapists over there, come back to her current school for the graduation ceremony, made it through that, and then everybody wanted to say goodbye to her and get photos. She’s pretty much had it; but her occupational therapist, Rose, wanted to make sure I saw the big thing they’d been working on all year – Katy transferring herself from a regular chair to her wheelchair.

I was stunned. Just watch:

I’m a proud Daddy.