When the author adopted her son, she was an early childhood educator with a Master's Degree who had taught young children for eight years and directed a child care and infant-toddler center for seven. She thought she knew something about children. Actually, she had a great deal to learn. It took years for her to learn about his needs. He slowly teaches her, but it took time to understand what his behavior was telling her, how to listen to the underlying messages and filter out her own wishes. Perhaps even more than these typical parenting questions, it took time for her to recognize the signs of a learning disability. In this article, the author offers the story of this journey from the perspective of a parent who is also a teacher, in the hope of evoking in other teachers new, perhaps deeper, understanding for the child and the family who are dealing with learning disabilities.