Here are the month’s highlights:
- First day of school: Luke starts kindergarten & Lilah begins third grade
- Lilah makes a “splash” in the local paper
- Kids win prizes and play games at company picnic
- Kids spend the night with cousin Rebecca
Luke
The big news this month is Luke starting kindergarten. Luke was really looking forward to it and his enthusiasm was quite a contrast from when Lilah was in the same position three years ago. Lilah was shy and quiet and we worried about how she would adapt to her new school and environment. Whereas with Luke, he just relished everything about the moment — the first day, meeting the kids in his class, and riding the bus. It makes sense though when you think about it. Before Luke even started kindergarten he had the benefit of going to Lilah’s school several times for different events and festivals. He’d already met the kindergarten teacher and heard all kinds of good things about her from Lilah. He had seen how Lilah got to ride the bus to school every day. In other words, in Luke’s mind, all these things were built up as things to look forward to, rather than something new and unknown that could cause anyone anxiety, let alone a shy, five-year old Lilah going to kindergarten for the first time. I guess this previously “filtered” experience is one of the benefits of being a second child.
Luke definitely isn’t short on confidence. Two examples stick out in my mind this month. One was a short exchange with a boy at our company picnic. Here’s the exchange:
Boy: How old are you?
Luke: I’m five
Boy: I’m six
Luke: (without skipping a beat): My sister’s eight
What I find interesting about the above example is not just Luke’s confidence in responding to an older child, but also how young this one-upsmanship begins with boys, and how it continues into adulthood, albeit somewhat more refined.
The second example is the confidence Luke displays among his teammates in soccer. I mean he had a definite idea about what he wanted his soccer team to be called: Tigers. And when it came time for each of his teammates to suggest a name, Luke kept stressing we needed to call the team the Tigers. I had to tell him to be quiet and let others speak. But when it came time to vote, Luke was able to sway another player on the team to go with tigers and so we are now the tigers. Luke, obviously, is very happy with the choice and is enjoying his first AYSO soccer experience, with dad helping out with assistant coaching duties.
Maybe if he keeps displaying that type of confidence and determination, he may one day catch up to his shadow ;-).
Lilah
Lilah had a good month of her own. She became somewhat of a celebrity in town when her picture made it on the pages of our local newspaper. The picture was snapped during a water fight held on Lilah’s last day of tennis and swimming camp. It’s a good thing our neighbors told us about it otherwise we would not have known about it until much later.
Lilah also won a blue first place ribbon for the hula hoop competition at our company picnic. She received the ribbon for keeping the hoop spinning the longest, matching her mom’s identical achievement a few weeks earlier — Cathy actually won a $10 gift certificate to a local restaurant for doing the same thing during a YMCA-sponsored Hawaiian week, which included impromptu contests throughout the week.
Cathy and I got a chance to go out this month thanks to Lilah’s second-cousin Rebecca. Lilah frequently complains because she does not have any girl cousins close by, but last year she connected with Rebecca at a family function. So this year, when they met again, Rebecca took a real interest in developing a relationship with Lilah because she empathized with her as she had gone through a similar experience growing up. Rebecca is a lot older than Lilah — she’s getting ready to head off to college — but she’s very sweet and also likes kids, which is good because she’s planning on getting into teaching. To make a long story short, the kids spent the night at Rebecca’s house and had a great time!
One other thing Lilah is really happy about is being reunited with her best friend Tori at school. They became best friends in kindergarten, but had different teachers in first grade and second grade. Now they’re finally back in the same class and enjoying every minute of it from what it sounds like. A good beginning at school for both kids, I’d say.
More next month…