Settling in.
So far, there have been 15 days of 1st grade. Holden has been moody, weepy, ecstatic, jubilant, feverish, sick, excited, defeated, refreshed, and exhausted.
Whooooeeee.
And so has the 1st-grade child of nearly everyone I know. Man, there is strength in numbers. We, as parents, have all been confused over the behavior of our children, dismayed, overjoyed, and just plain exhausted with them. As we started whispering our concerns, more of us started coming forward with, “Me too!” and now we’re sitting back, a little buggy-eyed, but relieved that it seems to be normal and things are starting to settle in and settle down a bit more.
Like I said. Whooooeeee.
And about par for the course, the 2YO has started to toy around with skipping his afternoon nap here and there. He gave it a desperate effort today, but failed.
The car ride back home from a mid-afternoon appointment did him in. I love that little pursed mouth he gets when he’s about to wake up.
And who among us can resist those eyelashes, even if they are a little bleached out from mornings in the sun and held up by checks dotted with the beginnings of freckles?
Even his toes were cozy, tucked up under his favorite lounge-around pants.
I love those piggies, still kissable, but just barely. He’s coming full-form into the gross and dirty stages of being a little boy.
Back to School.
The big shin-dig was tonight, and our big 1st-grader couldn’t wait to show us the cool stuff around his classroom and his school. The shyness is gone and he knows how to navigate his new domain, eager to point out where the gym is and the strategically placed bathrooms. That, his desk, and how to get outside is pretty much all you need to know to hammer out the details of this 1st-grader thing.
Wind socks, geographical style. We even recognized his handwriting right away, making him beam with pride ever so slightly more.
Biker boys.
Fierceness-on-a-bike did not skip a generation with these two. They ejected from car seat and booster seat and slipped their sweaty heads into helmets and their rear-ends on bike seats faster than fast.
With daylight escaping us a little earlier these days, they take every chance we’ll give them to race their fleeting shadows down the street as long as possible. The little guy’s even getting the hang of the balance bike, drawing his legs up high to see how long he can coast before he begins to tip over.
That tongue of his is a built-in rudder of sorts.
And notice the helmet? It was the first thing he grabbed out of the helmet bin. Lucky for him if there are any rogue baseballs zooming around.
His new schtick.
Not new, actually, but newly rediscovered. Frustrating for him, to say the least, but as in everything, he throws himself headfirst into giving it a go.
And two more of my favorite moments today? Watching a friend’s boy at the park do this:
And him. Always him.
