A few years ago, Xan's then-teacher asked if he could be used as a subject for the county - have some lady come in and interact with him with the teachers watching and seeing what handling an autistic kid was like.  I said sure, why not?

Came the day.  It was during the summer, and Xan wasn't too pleased about going to a school during his season of freedom, so he went in a little edgy.  For my part, I was hobbling in on a cane, after tearing two of the ligaments in my knee.  That hill to the school seemed AWFULLY long.

We go in, they set up, we start.

Right off the bat things go wrong.  The teacher had placed a bunch of objects on the table - shapes, dolls, toys, models, and the whoopsie one I could have headed off - food.  Xan seems to going through a continual growth spurt, and he saw that food and wanted it to the exclusion of everything else.  I was consulted with and said may as well let him have it, because he could out-stubborn every single person in there on their BEST days and his WORST one.

They decided I could sit up there with him and perhaps...encourage...him to show off what he knew, since he hadn't done a blessed thing but demand that food.  I tried but could tell he wasn't into it.  I wasn't that upset - I knew he was smart.  But I did hope he would show off a little bit.

The teacher leading the demonstration finally got to something he'd do.  "Can you find the circle?"  He reached for it.  "Good!"  (This was a tone of mixed praising and possible amazement he had listened to her.)  In a spirit of unbridled yet disbelieving hope she said, "Do you think you can find another one?"  I swear, he looked at her with utter disdain in his eyes - Nolan Ryan asked to pitch underhanded, Robin Williams asked to tell a knock-knock joke, Francis Ford Coppola asked to direct a school play disdain here.  For a child with limited vocabulary, he gets his point across.

He reached out, gets more circles, puts them together.  Then he gathered up different things of the same color, put them together.  Then he got various items that went together in a kitchen and put them together. All this to gasps and mutters of approval from the audience.  And after the kitchen items, he said, "Done!" and stood up.

I managed to hold off laughing until we got in the car.