I got a bit of good news about my younger son last week. It's just strange how long it took me to feel good about it.

My little guy, who came here from Sakhalin Island just short of his fifth birthday, has been going through a series of evaluations to see if he qualifies for an individualized education plan. The verdict last week: He doesn't.

I should have been jumping up and down, right? No disabilities that affect his ability to learn. I probably should have expected this from all that he has piled into his head since arriving here 18 months ago: a new language; letters A-Z; his address, phone number and the Pledge of Allegiance; the numbers from 1 to 100; a whole bunch of basic math concepts (addition and subtraction); English-language kids' songs; "The Star-Spangled Banner" (mangled, but recognizable); and most of all, what it means to be part of a family. It's no small wonder that he needs an hour or two of decompression time when he gets home from kindergarten at lunch.

Every adoptive parent should enquire about an individualized education plan, or IEP, for their child. It's as much a part of understanding your child's needs as a visit to the pediatrician or dentist. Julie over at the Parenting Children With Special Needs Blog has written extensively about the ins and outs of IEPs; you'd be wise to start your exploration of them there.

But unlike the way I handled the evaluation of my older child, I didn't start the IEP work on my younger child until he had been here a while. I needed to see for myself what part of his behavior was transitional and what part was permanent. I felt it was especially important to understand him because my current school district, though wonderful in many, many respects, has little experience with older adopted children, or children from very deprived backgrounds. The school spent six months casually observing him before we all agreed to go ahead with the IEP evaluations. Then they spent a lot of time in meetings with me and each other to make sure they were really in tune with my son's needs.

When all the tests were in, the consensus was that, while the school system needs to watch my little guy closely going forward, there's nothing that rises to the level of classification now. He'll continue with his speech classes and get a bit of physical therapy to deal with some upper-body weakness.

As I said, I should have been immediately relieved. Instead, I spent a week worrying that I might not be doing the right thing as a parent. I know parents who have been far more demonstrative over children whose learning issues aren't readily apparent to me. Maybe I should have been one of them?

No, in the end I've decided to celebrate this milestone. My little guy has a lot more to learn, but I'm confident he can do it.