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J is playing spring hockey and today was the first day of their first tournament. They have been having practices for a while and they had played one game as a team before today. We all headed to the rink this evening to watch his game. The teams are grouped by birth year, broken up into blue and white teams. J's team is the white team and they were playing the blue team of the same birth year.

They had a rough start to the game, giving up a few goals pretty quickly. The kids on the blue team are typically AAA/AA kids while the white team is more of a development team so it's usually AA/A kids. But J's team didn't let the fact that they were down a few goals stop them. They played really hard and by the end of the first period you could see they were really starting to figure each other out and come together as a team. They continued to play hard through the rest of the game and managed to score a goal but ultimately they lost.

I was really proud of J and the way he played. He seems like such a different player from the winter season. He's finally doing all the things that we've been waiting for him to do all year. He was scrapping in the corners, back checking, keeping his skates moving, and doing well overall. It's good to see him growing as a player.

We've also seen positive changes in him outside of hockey. I got a wonderful note from his teacher letting me know he has been doing really well in school. She used to have to tell him to stay in his seat and get his work done and even then he would struggle to get things done on time. She said that she hasn't had to speak to him about this in a long time and that he's been getting his work done and being very helpful in the classroom. It was really nice to hear that the talk we had with him about the importance of focusing at school sunk in and he's trying hard.

He was such a sweet big brother tonight. After hockey both kids were hungry for a snack. J wanted to make himself some toast with Nutella and of course S wanted some too. J made the snack for both of them, even giving her extra Nutella. He also helped S wash her face afterwards (her loose front tooth results in a messy face after every meal). It was really cute to listen to the two of them talking when they didn't realize we could hear them. They can be really sweet with each other when they want to.

I really hope all these positive changes in J continue. I don't know what has sparked all this - perhaps being 10 or being team captain or some combination of those - but it's really wonderful to see.