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Today was Open House at Z's school. I was looking forward to seeing more of what Z had been up to in the classroom but unlike other Open Houses I've taken part in, there weren't projects hanging up and the teachers didn't have any information to share. I asked Z to show me around his classroom but he just pointed out where he sat and then instructed me to look at the daily schedule. The school was encouraging everyone to check out all of the classrooms; students and parents were handed a card that they were to get stamped in each classroom. When you had all of the stamps on your card you could turn it in for an ice cream. Z is due to move up to a new room next year so I was interested to check out the classroom and talk to the teacher but Z was in and out of there so quickly I'm not even sure which adult in there was the teacher. Z zipped from classroom to classroom collecting stamps and then went straight to the cafeteria to get his ice cream and Az and I were left trying to get our stamps and keeping up. Az was feeling pretty tired and grumpy so I'm not sure how long I could have stayed in each classroom anyhow, but it would have been nice to get a couple of minutes in each room. I met a few of Z's friends from class so now I can finally put a face to the names in his stories from the day, so it wasn't a total loss.

There was a book fair set up in the cafeteria, which I think had a large part in Z's eagerness to get through the school tour. School book fairs are rarely that fruitful for us because the books tend to be for lower reading levels. I was hoping this fair would stock some books at a higher level since the school goes up to high school but it was all the standard elementary school stuff. I was able to buy a couple of books about shoes for Az though, which was nice because I've been looking for shoe-related books for her, and at least this way I was helping the school out a little. Z ended up picking out a couple of non-book items that were kind of sort of academic; a calculator that looks like a chocolate bar and an invisible ink pen. Like I said, they were only kind of sort of.

After the Open House we met my friend N for a pizza fundraiser for the school. As always most of the parents did not socialize with each other. It seemed most of the parents just ran in to pick up to-go orders. I'm having the hardest time getting to know the other parents. There was a group of two or three parents and their kids sitting at the large table in the pizza parlor but their table was full and they made no motion to make room for us so the kids, N, and I sat on our own. I really would like to get to know the other parents; being the parent of a kid on the spectrum is a unique experience and I would love to have other parents to share my thoughts and experiences with. Maybe next year Z will move up to the next class and there will be a couple (or even one!) parents in the new group also looking to make friends. Z had a blast running around the pizza parlor with the other kids at least, so it wasn't a complete fail on the social front.