I would give you the whole world ...

As a parent, you are always worrying, always thinking about what the right thing to do is..

are they eating the right foods?
am I too soft?
how are they coping?
what does 'this' mean?
if I make 'that' decision now how will it impact on them in later life....?

Obviously, like most of us parents, I want Ethan to grow and thrive and learn and love and continue to be the happy free boy he is...

I 'think' he is doing well,
I 'feel' like he is happy,
that he is content and confident...

But there is always doubt, frustrations, happiness, tears and sometimes anger! (but that story in the supermarket is for another day, lol!).

So it came as a real surprise to both Daddy and I when Ethan announced a few months ago that he had auditioned for a lead singing part in the school play. We are both confident people (the type of outwardly confident people who still have internal anxieties, lol!), both good at public speaking, i guess 'people' person... but Ethan has a shy quality and now and then he can get quite anxious, the thought of being late for school would send him into a tail spin and the one time he was late he was in hysterics! So to know he felt brave enough to audition felt like a big step. Ethan is very confident in his school, with the people he knows. Volunteering answers, information and questions to the teacher, is popular amongst his peers and doing very well academically. But last year, when he did a performance at our local theatre for part of the music festival he was quite nervous and had an 'accident' on stage (not that anyone noticed!). So yesterday, on the day of his big performance, my stomach was in knots and i felt sick.

I was in school in the morning as I now volunteer 2 morning a week for the children who need additional reading support. I dashed home, had some lunch, grabbed the video camera and literally ran back up to school, bagging a front row seat! (Yes i am that annoying parent!).

The show was amazing, all the children did so well, it was one of the longest shows they had done. There were no fluffed lines, superb singing and all the children coped well under the stage lights, standing on the stage faced with 100 eager faces! The school know their stuff as this was their 3rd performance. They had done full (including make up, costume, stage lighting etc) shows for the entire school/faculty on Tuesday and to the nursery on Wednesday. So by the time it came to yesterday and their 'public' performance they were all perfect!

Ethan was wonderful, he belted out his song (he played the tom cat, singing about his lost love who had been swept away by the owl!). At 7 1/2, standing on that stage, singing on his own.. I felt so proud, that burning of admiration and awe. My beautiful boy! Just to add to that he had an additional job of 'musical technician' throughout the show, so multi tasking at his best, and i must say all the music started and stopped where it was supposed to lol!

So basically the point of this post, is not to boast about my amazingly beautiful, kind, boy (don't get me wrong, he can be equally frustrating, tiring and challenging!) haha. But to say that they will always surprise you, surprise you in their ability, their desires, their drive. The choices they make, the paths they choose, and I guess our job is to stand back, watch them, love them and in my case film it :-))

Happy Friday everyone!
xx