We are finally back to routine this week.  The boys have started going to CDC three days a week as of last week, and Connor had ended the first two weeks of three-hour days.  All of us really enjoy walking to school everyday, and the boys often talk with each other all the way there.  They both like their new teachers.  Connor definitely shares a lot more about school with us.  He is liking everything, but the only thing he disliked was having lunch at CDC last week.  His explanation was that he had to wait for everyone to finish eating before he could leave the table.  Logan has fewer words, but has not shared anything he disliked yet.  Connor’s class ends 25 minutes before Logan’s does.  On Monday after I picked Connor up, he and I hung out at the adjacent park with some kindergarteners to play with until time to pick up Logan.  This will be a new little routine for Connor every Monday and Friday.  Something very sweet was when we asked both kids what their favorite part of the day was, they both independently told us that they enjoy playing with each other at CDC.

   I forgot to plan for babysitting for the Back to School night on Tuesday; fortunately Kathy was willing to help out.  The boys were thrilled to find out the plan for the evening.  Not only would they be spending time with Ian and Kira, they were going out for pizza dinner.  After Kathy picked up the boys, Stuart and I were off to school and we had to split up to attend the two classes.  Connor’s teacher was very thorough and reviewed lots of information.  As soon as the 30 minutes was up, I rushed over to the auditorium to meet up with Stuart for the Home and School Club meeting.  According to Stuart, Logan’s teacher shared good information and reviewed the kids’ recent computerized reading assessment.  Logan’s reading/comprehension level had dropped but the teacher advised that this is not uncommon after the long summer.  After the meeting, we headed home, and shortly after, Kathy drove the boys home.  Both Logan and Connor had so much fun that they were not ready to say bye.  They tried to convince them to come in to the house and later tried to sneak back into the car.  It was a fun evening for the boys and informative one for us.

    Connor attended Haarika’s, one of his ex-classmate, birthday party over the weekend.  Connor initially was excited but changed his mind when he realized that Logan was not attending.  Finally when I shared that the party theme was Frozen and that Elsa and Anna would be there, his interest was up again.  Connor and I arrived on time; after he played with his ex-classmates for a little bit, all the kids were directed to sit down.  Then Anna and Elsa arrived and started singing and chatting with the kids.  It was quite entertaining.  At the end, the two characters also made balloon characters for the kids.  Connor really enjoyed the whole show and he waited politely for his turn to get a balloon.  Then it was time for pizza and cake.  It was a fun party.

      Last Saturday was the final piano lesson for Connor as he will miss the last class next week.  He was a bit disappointed to miss out on the party day.  But so far Connor is not interested to take lessons again, so this might be the last one.  However tonight, while Stuart and Logan were playing a game, Connor sat at the piano and practiced two of the pages without being asked. 

This is a video of the teacher coaching Connor during the last lesson.

     Connor woke up with a very concerning red shot in his eye on Thursday morning.  Other than this bright red spot underneath his right iris, no other issues and it was not bothering to Connor.  We looked it up online and felt comfortable that it was a broken vessel, possibly from rubbing the eye.  Later I did double check with the doctor by email and received confirmation.  We told Connor about what happened, so he could tell the teacher in case he was asked.  He is also interested to look at the mirror daily to see when it would go away.  Today is day 3, the redness starts to fade away slowly.

The funny thing is when we looked at the first picture I took of Connor on day 1, he totally looks like Logan on the picture.  I think we can potentially pick out the wrong boy if I did not take the picture myself.

     A few days prior to Logan’s first practice, the coaches had invited the teammates and families for a pizza dinner to get to know the team.  On the practice day Logan seemed to be excited to get geared up and start playing.  According to what we could see from a distance, Logan did fine following the coaches’ instruction and doing the drills.  Toward the end, their team played a scrimmage game with another team.  Logan and another teammate were at the end playing defense, but they did not have much action at all as the ball never made it there.  Stuart told me that Logan actually went up to the coach and asked to be moved to offense instead.  He did ok there and had tried to get the ball too.  Hopefully Logan is more assertive this season compared to last.  After practice, Logan received his jersey based on height, and he got my favorite number #8 again, just like last year.