My baby bird...

spread his wings this afternoon and SOARED!!!!

To clarify, the baby bird I am referring to is Salamander (Potatey mastered soaring when he sprung from the womb, and has been dive bombing the world and life in general ever since.. LOL).

I had signed Salamder up for an After School Sports program run by his school and coached by one of the teachers.. Just picture 15, almost 10 year old, boys with a lot of penned up energy (they've had to 'behave' all day after all) bouncing off the walls, running around like mad, screaming, hooting, hollering .... like only 10 year old boys can.
Today was a 'try-out' session for Salamander, as neither school nor me really knew how things were going to pan out. Salamander can get a bit.. well.. agitated in loud, noisy crowds, especially when a lot of 'bumping and crashing' is involved.

Imagine my surprise and delight when, when I appeared at school as I had been asked to 'observe' Salamander and how all the interactions were going in general, Salamander utterly, totally and completely ignored me for well over an hour (exactly what you would expect from any 10 year old boy when his mum shows up eh? it's just NOT cool to even admit that you HAVE a mum, let alone that she is watching what you are doing). He ran around with his school mates, yelling and playing along with them.

Of course we had a few bumps, but before I could even step in, Salamander's school mates had intervened (Salamander got very angry at a school mate for tagging him out in dodge ball; and angry and 'exploding' are synonyms in this house.. we're working on this..) pulled Salamander away from a potentially ugly situation and brought him back to the game.

Bottom line: Salamander did AWESOME. And once he got home, the first thing out of his mouth was 'Can I go again, for ever this time?'. Sounds like a resounding endorsement eh?

He's come so very very far. We still have far to go (the moods/anger/ explosiveness, ADHD and LDs will continue to require a LOT of work), and I know we will have to go through many more difficult moments to 'get there', but what a difference from where we started when Salamander was just a little shy of six.

Yes, my baby bird spread his wings today and soared (and now mum's gotta learn to let go..)