Breakthrough

Pup walked to school independantly today.

  He's nine and a lot of Mums would not agree with letting their nine year old go to school alone. But we live in a housing estate where most of the traffic is school-run parents. it is a ten minute walk. OK there are a few franky dangerous Mums-in-a-hurry who don't seem to care if another child dies as long as their child gets to school on time; but most of the traffic is slow and steady. And we have to let him off the short leash sometime. Because of some behaviour issues we are reluctant to let him go alone to the nearby playground and shops, but he is beginning to need space and freedom.He may be emotionally at about age 4, but in other ways he is a normal nine year old. And I've been brainwashing him about road safety from the day he could walk.

  Tigs was being  a right royal pain in the butt  slightly unco-operative, and Pup was ready, coat and bag on, by the door, so I told him he could go on ahead. Now I have done this before and he's dawdled and dillied and dallied until we caught him up; obviously too anxious to go without us, despite being desperate to try. But today we were 3 minutes behind him, and we didn't see him all the way to school, or even the burn marks he must have left on the pavement. I got to school panicking slightly in case he'd got lost or abducted by aliens, and there he was in the playground cheerfully chatting up the deputy head teacher.

So... a breakthrough, even if it was a scary one.  

  And it is his first school swimming lesson today, so another scary thing. I'll have to wait until 3 o'clock to find out how that went. Could be entertaining to hear from his teachers how he gets on; he can swim, but he looks rather like a demented walrus, and swims underwater as well, with backside sticking out. Not a pretty sight.