Two weeks ago we bid farewell to T.'s speech therapist extraordinaire, and last week I sat down with T.'s new speech teacher and her homeroom teacher and signed numerous documents setting up an IEP for her to receive speech therapy at school. It was seamless transition, really, from private therapy to free services at school. There had been no haggling over whether or not she could even receive speech at school; they accepted her private therapy evaluation without a second thought, and a few e-mails later we got the paperwork rolling.

We made it through the speech evaluation yesterday. It was all fairly effortless, and T. had a great time, actually--and I did, too, in a way. She looked at scores of pictures and identified them all, listened to some stories and recounted them, and got to assemble a Mr. Potato Head, all the while delighting the evaluator with her chirpy narrative. I realized long ago that watching evaluations doesn't have to be all doom and dread and angst. I actually watch my kids interacting with the evaluator and feel a sense of pride welling up inside at me.