Rand's Success

On Thursday I promised good news. Today I'm finally posting it.

Rand presented his Sr. Project on Thursday and did an awesome job. Everyone at the school is SO proud of him. And, the most importantly, he did this with no help from either Bart or I all year. He did a project on the Navajo Indians to learn more about the kids that my mom works with at Sun Valley Indian School. It required him to put in 300 hours of work and clock them all. He did all kinds of things -- built a hogan, built a weaving loon, did a weaving, did a powerpoint with over 60 slides, and did tons of research. And never once did we have to remind him.

His presentation went very well. He only has to go to school for a couple hours a day next week and then on June 1 he will graduate.

The amazing thing is that I had a revelation a few weeks ago. We knew by reading paperwork that he had been drug exposed in utero, but there was no mention of alcohol. But when I was working on his scrapbook, I looked at his baby pictures and immediately emailed Kari and told her to look for facial features for FAS. She saw them right away. A few days later she was presenting at a training and was talking about ears sticking out as a characteristic of FAS and I remembered that Rand had has surgery to so that his ears wouldn't stick out.

I have asked myself many questions about the difference between Rand and Mike and their level of success with the same diagnosis. Is it because Rand's IQ is so much lower? Because we never knew Rand had it and didn't talk about it? Because Rand came to us at 11, and Mike at 8? Because of their histories (Rand's on paper was MUCH worse?

But I've come to the conclusion that it is solely the amount of attachment we have and how much Rand trusts us. From the very moment he moved in he trusted us and never doubted that we had his best interest in mind. He has been directable and when we give him advice he believes it's true. Sometimes we have to repeat things, and sometimes he doesn't get it right, and he has had to work hard for what he wants, but he trusts us.

He's graduating this week. He's going to live with us and go to college. He got the job I told him to get did a good job, and kept it until he got laid off because they had to do staff reduction.. Now we're finding him another one. He's done very well considering his disabilities. He's going to live here while he goes to college and run errands for me in exchange for his rent.

It's working because he trusts us. His history is worse. His IQ is lower. His disability may be more severe. But he loves us and knows that we love him.

And I'm beginning to believe that's all that matters.