Hamslice Update

Many of you have been asking "How's Hamslice doing? What happened when school started again this year?"

So I have an update for you, and the good news is that so far it's pretty good stuff.

We wound up enrolling Hamslice in the local public school, right here in Federal Hill. And believe me I did so with incredible trepidation. When I went there to sign him up, there were some large scale mothers from Sharp Leadenhall there, yelling about stuff and blocking up the counter. but I carried through and after four attempts (on different days) was able to enroll him for fall.

My thinking was this: "It's a practice school. He can go here and learn to do school, and then we will see what's next." The flip side was this "If he can't handle even this school (where some pretty tough cases come through) then we know it's time for special ed or homeschool."

On our first day, I walked him to school and held his hand while things got started for the morning. He was the blonde in a sea of corn rows and little shaved heads. The moms mostly knew each other and were belly laughing and carrying on, meanwhile I was so nervous -- watching Hamslice to see if his nerves were under control. He, however, was a little champ. He did just fine.

Three days later, I get a frantic call from the office -- your son has flipped his lid. So I ran to school and found him in the nurse's office speaking in a high squeaky voice and hiding under the bed. Here we go, I thought.

But I took the words of AB to heart (from her visit this summer), and told him that we needed to eat some food and then get back to class. No more days off for freaking out, Mister. And POOF -- that was the end of any further episodes. To date, nothing even close to a tantrum. All better.

Now that school is actually about school, he is doing very well at math, his reading has exploded and we are all happy to see him mastering concepts one after another. He is very excited now about being the "good kid" and that means something to him now that there are others who are a little worse behaved than he is in school.

This week we bid our last therapist good bye, and we are flying solo. I haven't removed them from speed dial, but we are ready to try this ourselves. Here goes nothin!