The Joe and Amanda Adventure!!

On Thursday I get to go to the special ed school and I'm in a class where they don't seem to do very much, and I know I should ask to be switched to another class where I can be more helpful, but I totally never will because I am in love.

In my class there is a boy named Joe who is eleven and has short bristly hair, a flat skull (side to side, not back to front), heavy-lidded eyes, a big nose, and not much of a chin. I keep going on the Internet and trying to figure out what disability Joe has, and how I could cause my future children to have it (kidding!) because he's soo tremendously cute. He reminds me of the puppets from Coraline. I'll stop carrying on about Joe's physical characteristics because I think I sound sort of like a Nazi doctor, but I'm just trying to say he is really cute.

So, last week my Joe infatuation began because I got to hang out with him during gym class and try to induce him to walk his walker-thing around the gym (according to Wikipedia it's called a rollator, it basically keeps him strapped in a standing position and he can stop moving and rest his head on the shelf, and it has wheels, but he pushes with his feet). I couldn't really tell if Joe was into me or not. I did see him kind of opening his big mushy mouth in what looked like a smile, so I felt hopeful, and then all week I carried on about my love for Joe until my memory of him was sort of worn away, and I was really scared of going in and having Joe not like me when I have built him up in my head as the Most Adorable.

So, when I went in Joe was right next to the door, and he was just standing there in his walker, and I crouched down to look at him, and guess who was way more friendly than last time and lifted his head up from the shelf and looked around and if I understand correctly was totally smiling and stuff and walking really fast!! I could be wrong. This requires further investigation. But I think we are friends.

P.S. During circle time the teacher talks in this really loud cheery voice and the only verbal kid is really noisy and yells out the answers, and I have a theory Joe doesn't like it because he clasps his hands together really hard and sort of punches himself in the ear. <333

P.P.S. I did some more Joe Research on the Internet and he looks like the little girl in the first two pictures on this page. It made me really sad because I guess he has lissencephaly and it seems like a lot of kids with lissencephaly die really young. I hope he doesn't have one of those kinds.

P.P.P.S. Joe's class makes me sad in general because I feel like every kid should have their own aide and get the chance to use a communication device but they only have a few aides and they don't have any communication devices. It just makes me upset because I feel like they're not getting anything done and they all look really spaced out a lot of the time.

P.P.P.P.S. Some of the kids were making trouble and the teacher said, "I think some of us aren't going to have cookies at lunch," and Joe who never makes any noise suddenly yelled "Baaaaah!" in a really angry voice and she had to be like, "Oh no Joe, not you!"

P.P.P.P.P.S. I think the difference between high-functioning autism and low-functioning autism is that people with low-functioning autism get confused as to whether the obviously computerized voices on answering machines are real.