End of Break, First Day of Summer School

It is the first day of summer school today. And, in some respects, it is Kai’s first day in third grade (though summer school is not the same academically).

Kai had the same teacher for both first and second grade. But today he transitions into his third grade classroom with a new teacher.

All changes are potentially difficult for my son. Moving from a classroom where he had grown very comfortable to a new class will likely bring some difficult moments.

In the past few weeks, Kai has shown a few signs of anxiety about the upcoming change. Although many of his classmates from second grade will be with him in his new class, his best friend, and perhaps only friend, will not. And that may be tougher on him than getting used to a new teacher.

We wondered whether his anxiety played any part in him having a somewhat rough last few weeks at the end of his second grade school year. Since making Level 3, he hasn’t come close to maintaining his good behavior, as he had several incidents in each of his last few weeks of school.

Still, this morning, after he woke up, when I asked him how he felt about going back to school, he said he was happy. And he did not seem anxious at all. So hopefully he will adjust and get off to a good start.

But one thing already happened that illustrated that it won’t be easy.

As frequently happens at the beginning of the term, the taxi company switched drivers. The new driver came to pick Kai up about 15 minutes earlier than the time the previous driver came. We did not have Kai ready to go. He still needed to take his medicines.

When I spotted the cab turning into our driveway, I let Kai know it was here and that he needed to hurry up. Most kids would speed up and try to get ready faster. Kai, however, got upset at the early arrival and refused to take his medicines.

The more I tried to get him to speed up, the more he refused to do anything. My wife finally got him to calm down and he eventually did take the medicine while the cab driver patiently waited for him.

So now he is off to school. But who knows what kind of day he is having.

* * * * *
We enjoyed the rest of his one-week break from school. After the busy first few days, we took it a bit easier the last few days, though still filled with much activity.

We had a nice Father’s Day yesterday. We started out with a Mexican breakfast.



Then we played several games of Monopoly on the Wii. The Wii version has a number of different boards, and Kai wanted to unlock and play all of them. He doesn’t really have the patience to sustain throughout a full game of Monopoly, but we tried to speed things up and go bankrupt rather than playing things out to the bitter end.

For dinner, Kai helped by shucking the corn on the cob. (We brushed olive oil on the corn, seasoned them with salt and garlic, wrapped each cob in foil, and put them on the grill over medium heat for 30 minutes.)



My wife made one of my favorites, fried chicken. She baked the chicken after the initial frying, which made it less greasy, healthier, very moist, and very tasty.



After dinner, Kai wanted to make cucumber-mint water from a recipe he found in a magazine for kids. It was a refreshing, healthy drink for a warm summer evening.



It was certainly a nice Father’s Day. But I like to think that getting to spend time with your family makes every day father’s day. And you can’t beat that.