When I taught kids with learning disabilities in Portland Public Schools, I celebrated their progress in spite of many classroom teachers' statements that, "He can't read!" Well, no he can't read at grade level, but he's making progress." Often those kids made more progress percentage-wise in one year than the brightest students did, if all you used to measure progress were the state test scores.

We are making progress here. A week ago my entry was a recording of all Leola's questions during an evening period while Jon was working at Virgina Garcia Clinic. He worked there again tonight (this is volunteer work at a free clinic), which I realize in retrospect, he didn't tell me was happening until this morning.

The evening went great. After a few confused moments when Leola repeatedly asked when we would eat or "Did you eat?"

I asked if she was hungry. She replied "Not especially."

I'm learning. So I knew she wasn't asking out of hunger. "We'll eat in a little while. Right now I want to finish this chapter in my book."

She said "Okay" and went back downstairs".

I finished my pages and faced the music. I heated some soup, cut some bread, set the table and we ate in quiet conversation, mostly talking about grandchildren. Mostly me reminding her of her grand children's names, and where they currently live. I'm learning how to direct the conversation. I fetched my laptop from upstairs and found more recent photos of Trista and Eric than the childhood ones she has in her bedroom. I was careful to choose the ones including her with them. Whitney and Daniel she's more familiar with but she still needs reminders (on a daily basis) of who they are.

I suggested we take a walk, so we walked the short way up our small hill to the neighborhood garden. It was something to do. Our neighbors, Kelly and Bret, were playing with their small boys, ages 2 and 5 and she was fascinated with their white/blond hair - thinking only girls can have hair that color. I picked a few blueberries and we ate them on the way back.

After our return, I prepared myself for a repeat of last Monday - manic questions in rapid fire. But to my surprise, we spent the evening in happy coexistence, both of us reading. We exchanged conversation from time to time. JUST LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE. I got up once to make her some tea and get a glass of wine for myself. At 9:30 I said I was getting tired and she quickly said she wanted to go to bed.

Maybe this can work after all.