coming into his own

Today is Henry's last day of 4th grade. This time of year, with the end of school and changing of seasons, seems to invite nostalgia, or at least reflection on what has gone before. Like my friend Eileen, I am thinking about how far my son has come.

My niece graduated from high school last week, and we spent the day at her party Saturday. The whole family was gathered in a shelter house in a beautiful wooded park. There was lots of food, lots of wild play by the other kids, there were dogs and babies and it was HOT.

Henry did fine.

He did ask frequently about when we were going to leave, but by now we are quite used to fending off his verbal assaults.

For the most part he hung out with a book or two and his ipod.

And at one point my sister-in-law pointed out that Henry had made friends with one of the dogs. One of the smaller, quieter, mellower dogs.

Henry was happy to be solitary, but he was able to talk with other party guests (better with adults than kids) when they approached him. There is usually one adult in such a situation that really gets to know Henry (in this case it was my SIL's sister), and that relationship developed without any intervention from Bill or me. She just liked Henry. And he liked her.

He ate some pie, but stopped at one piece. OK, two pieces.

I told him on the way home how proud I was of him for "hanging in there". But it wasn't until the next day, when I really thought about it, that I realized- at an event like this 2 or 3 years ago? We either would have cut our stay short, or Bill or I would have had to sit with Henry and read, take a walk, go somewhere in the car, otherwise distract him for the majority of the party.

A few years before that? We would have had to worry about him pinching or scratching the other kids for being too wild or too loud or getting in his space. I would have watched him like a hawk, afraid he would grab the whole pie plate and start digging out handfuls of cherries.

And we probably would have had to leave with a crying noodle of a boy, making his little brother leave before he was ready.

I could give other examples from the past week: our good family trip to the zoo, accompanying Henry's class to the conservatory, Tommy and Bill's last soccer practice/scrimmage/handing out of certificates that went on for longer than Henry would have liked...

He is learning how to handle life, and so are the rest of us. It's a nice feeling. It's nice to feel like we are all coming into our own comfortable place.