School is Calling Again!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Sometimes I just can't handle it. I know we have all done it.  Our cell rings and we see that it is the school calling and we let it go to voicemail. Come on, you know you have done it.  I do it so that I can listen to the voice mail to see why they are calling.  Is he hurt?  Did he have a seizure? Did he hurt someone? Does he need an extra set of clothes?  What did he do, say, or break, and who do I have to apologize to or pay?  In our fragile ASD world we live on edge, not the edge, just edge!  Every phone call is a potential disaster, every email could be another nail in the door of "stay out or else!"  Until, eventually, you just stop answering the phone and let your partner deal with this crisis for once.  You forward the email to him or her and say "Please handle this--but be diplomatic!"
It happened yesterday.  I was enjoying my shopping trip at Costco and was on the phone with the ASD case manager trying to find out about ADHD clinics, and my phone indicated another call was waiting.  I let it go to voicemail.  When I checked to see who the missed call was from and it brought up my son's school, I thought "Oh heavens, what has he done now?  There are only 8 days left of school, hasn't he done everything already this year?"  I forced myself to listen to the message. The voice was his classroom teacher's.  She wanted to relay a very sweet story to me about something that happened just before the kids went to music and she would be available to talk for the next half hour or so.
I called her back immediately because I love wonderful James stories.  She started telling me how he had choked her up today during the making of the class memory book (notice ~ not choked her {that was kindergarten and James is now in 2nd grade}).  The kids were being asked to pick friends and tell what they liked about them.  Some of the kids were saying comments such as "you're funny," "you're nice," etc. ... James thought and attributed the 6 pillars of character to his friends with such honesty and astuteness he touched his teacher and aide in a very special way.  She went on to tell me that over half of the class chose James as a friend to say something nice about.  Couldn't be PROUDER of my little man!  In the middle of the frozen section of Costco, I beamed!
2nd grade  has been by far the best of the tough years.  James has many friends (though he only knows about 1/3 of the names of the kids in the class).  He has made amazing progress and now intellectually knows the 6 pillars of character.  As a parent, I know the first step to doing something is knowing what to do.  Next year, with the knowledge fully under his belt, he will have more time to put the pillars into practice, making them second nature.  Not to say that he doesn't already show that he knows the pillars, but this year he has been more like Hercules trying to push the pillars into his comfort zone.  Next year, he will stand strong with them not against them.