I received a nice surprise today when I saw Logan’s class pictures in his backpack.  I did not expect to get them back so quickly as they usually appeared toward the end of the year at the previous school.  We were also surprised to see Logan in his eyeglasses.  These days Logan seems to enjoy wearing them quite often, almost all day long at school except when he is on the computer.  Overall, we are happy with Logan’s picture as he looks comfortable and happy.  He looks so grown up now.  The class picture is nice too.

     I took Logan to the soccer games this morning (back to back), while Stuart and Connor joined us at the start of the second game.  Logan was happy to be there.  He played around with a few of his teammates while he tried to do his best at the games.  He seemed more assertive, trying to steal the ball and running faster to get to the action.  He still had yet attempted to shoot a goal during any game this season.  But I saw him doing a cool back kick once to save the ball from going out of bound.  After the first game, the team had a snack and played around with each other until the next game began.  Logan and some of the teammates appeared more tired and less aggressive at the second game.  Logan did try his best, but he was less focused at the game, easily distracted by talking with his teammates.  Logan also had one classmate in each of the opposing teams today; he socialized with them a bit and he seemed more comfortable guarding them than others. 

    At the end the Coyotes did not win either game, but everyone seemed to have a good time.  Logan said he was tired, but he definitely seemed to have fun running around and enjoying the company of his teammates.  They all got a bag of snacks at the end; Logan received his and immediately asked nicely if he could get another one for his brother.  Connor was thrilled to share the snacks as he often had after each game.

     Connor woke up quite congested on Thursday.  He had to use his mouth to breathe well, but other than, he did not have other symptoms.  At the end of the day, he told me that he had a bad day at school as his nose was a bit runny and he had to use tissue sometimes.  On Friday he was less congested but his voice was very scratchy sounding.  He told us that he did not feel well and that he should stay home.  His nose was not runny anymore then and he ate his breakfast very well.  Both Stuart and I had a busy work ahead of us, so Connor went to school.  He told me at the end of the day that his day was “good and just a little bit bad”.  Today he was fine other than still slightly congested, and we decided to have him take it easy.  Connor only went to Logan’s second game of the day and in the afternoon we took a walk to the local school and played for a little.  However by second half of the day, Connor’s nose started runny again.  Will hope that he is better tomorrow as he wants to play tennis.

    Logan is enjoying his soccer practices and games these days; he is excited to be out on the field.  However he is still his usual self, not assertive at all.  He runs back and forth with the team, but he never tried to get the ball.  If the ball gets in front of him, he will give it a kick.  I had even seen him saying no when the coach asked for volunteers for goal kick or kick off.  It is a bit frustrating to watch, but Logan does seem to have fun running and playing with the teammates.

    The past weekend, Stuart had some time to practice with Logan and tried to get him to be more aggressive.  Then Logan asked to play soccer with me after I picked him up from school on Monday, and we had a great time.  He showed me the more powerful kicks he learned from Stuart and he was doing a great job stealing the ball from me.

    Since the time change, the Wednesday practices had moved up in the afternoon.  Stuart took Logan to the last practice of the season yesterday while I was still at work.  When they came home, Logan was happy to share that he did great at practice.  He told me that he played hard, tried to get the ball, and he even said he tried to help the other Logan (who is the star player for the team) to score.  As a result, Logan has earned two tokens from Stuart as a reward.  It was nice to watch Logan feeling so proud of his own effort. 

    This Saturday will be the last game day of the season.  They will be having a Jamboree tournament and Logan’s team (Coyotes) will play two games back to back.  We will see how Logan will do in these last games.

    Some disappointment this evening and it started when I picked Connor up at school.  The teacher asked if Connor wanted to tell me himself or have her tell me what happened during lunch, and Connor chose the latter.  She shared that Connor often plays with this one friend and today they were only talking instead of eating at lunch time, so the teacher encouraged them to stop.  However they continued on with chatting, so the teacher had to move them away from each other.  But instead of stopping, they kept on trying to talk to each other and were laughing about getting in trouble.  The teacher said this behavior was unusual coming from Connor, and both kids received an individual talk with the teacher afterward.  I was disappointed with Connor being disrespectful to his teacher and we had our talk while we walked to the car.

    When we arrived home, we shared the incident with Stuart and Connor got yet another talk.  As I was making dinner, Connor called me right when he was rushing to the bathroom and said “I think I peed in my pants”.  It had been awhile since he did this, so I had to rush Connor in the shower to clean up.  After dinner tonight, Connor tried to make up for his earlier behavior by listening very well and making some nice drawings and writings.

    There are parent-teacher conferences at Logan’s school this week, therefore, they are on an early dismissal the entire week.  Logan’s conference was on Monday, so we added another day of after-school program just for Monday.  Stuart and I arrived to school before our meeting time with the teacher; since she happened to have an empty slot, she met with us right away.  The first thing she said was that Logan is doing well at school.  She went on to share with us some of the work Logan has been doing since August.  She showed us Logan’s progress in writing and math, and what he has been doing with the computer software.  She also shared Logan’s result from the standardized testing all the kids went through a month ago.  Logan is on track with his reading ability and comprehension; he “reads at a level equal to that of a typical first grader after the sixth month of the school year”.  But it also suggested that Logan’s reading speed might be on the low side and needs improvement.  The teacher explained that the speed was determined by the computer how fast Logan responded after reading the questions, therefore the speed could be affected by different factors.  Other than academic, the teacher reported that Logan likes to help out in class and he participates in all the school activities willingly.  He is comfortable there now and has no problems communicating with her or with other classmates.  He is sometimes a bit chatty with others that the teacher has to give him a quick reminder, but he stays in green (good behavior).  Logan presents his monthly poem in front of the class with a good projection of voice.  He also participates at PE with the coach without any issues.  The teacher mentioned a couple of times that she enjoys having Logan in her class.

    Stuart and I were happy with this first report card, and Logan was happy to have both of us picking him up from CDC afterward too.