08/08/2026
We are officially one week into middle school, and Evan did AMAZING this week!
Everyone at school has been so impressed with how well he is navigating this huge new environment independently, all while carrying what is, no exaggeration, a 30-pound backpack on his back!
Every morning, he wakes up before me AND before his alarm clock. By the time I come downstairs, he is dressed and ready to go. Well, almost ready. I still have to send him back upstairs every morning to brush his teeth, and occasionally we have to address a questionable matching decision. But otherwise, he is up, dressed and excited to start his day completely on his own.
He is working incredibly hard in his classes and is so happy that he has friends from elementary school in every one of them. And in a decision that was 100% his own, he decided to join the school orchestra! He plans to play either the viola or violin. I love seeing him choose new things he wants to try and continue finding his place in middle school. Plus, there are studies that say that playing musical instruments help with brain healing. We’ve absolutely seen this with the piano!
Of course, this week also reminded us that there are still challenges we can’t always anticipate.
On Friday, we got the dreaded call from the school nurse.
That enormous backpack, the bane of our existence, was sitting next to Evan’s desk. He forgot it was there, tripped over it and fell into his desk, hitting his head.
Thankfully, it wasn’t a major bump, but given everything he has been through, we obviously don’t take a hit to the head lightly. I brought him home from school, and after some Advil, an ice pack, Chick fil A and lots of monitoring, we are incredibly thankful that he is just fine.
I had spent so much time worrying about him losing his balance while walking through the halls that it never occurred to me that he might trip over his own backpack while standing next to his desk!
Now we know.
We’ve talked with him about always putting his backpack somewhere that it can’t become a tripping hazard and being very intentional about looking where he is walking.
There are just SO many variables in middle school that weren’t concerns in elementary school. Every new level of independence brings new things for us to think about.
But if there is one thing we know about Evan, it is that he is incredibly determined to get back to a normal life and to be like all the other kids.
Brain exhaustion and balance continue to be two of our biggest concerns, but we have so many wonderful people at the school keeping an eye on our boy. We are hopeful that as the year continues and we see him successfully navigate more and more of these situations, some of the anxiety we feel as parents will begin to lessen.
We also got some pretty incredible validation this week.
Evan was assigned the SAME county physical therapist he had in elementary school! She came to see him yesterday and was absolutely blown away by his progress.
That meant so much to us because she hadn’t seen him in months. She knew exactly where he was before summer, so for her to immediately recognize such a huge difference is a true testament to just how much progress he has made.
We are still anxiously awaiting his academic testing results so we can make sure the classes we placed him in are still the right fit, and we have another big IEP meeting coming up in early September.
For now, though, we are celebrating a really successful first week of middle school.
Thank you all for continuing to follow our boy, cheer him on and celebrate every milestone with us. Every day is a new adventure as his brain continues to heal, and every day Evan continues to show us just how determined he is to keep moving forward.
