2nd Grade Ben

Ben is loving 2nd grade.  He has friends in his class, a young fun teacher that does raffle drawings based on class dojo points, and he has even eaten school lunch once or twice.  (The first time was because he forgot his lunch at home, and he realized it wasn't as bad as he thought it might be!)

This picture says a lot about Ben's personality--he really wanted transition lenses this year so he could have sunglasses.  So, I let him get them.  Bummer that I forgot to have him wear the other glasses on school picture day.  But when this guy is determined to wear something (or not to wear something) it's hard to change his mind.  He loves polos for dress up (not itchy dress shirts), and t-shirts and shorts for everything else (no matter how cold it is).  Yesterday we had our family pictures and he cried and cried that he had to wear jeans.  Seriously.  (Maybe that was getting up at 7 am on a Saturday as well.)

He LOVES to read.  He is reading the Dragon Masters series.  He plows through about 1 a day.  Good thing there are 12 and the Clean Room Fairy bought them all.  He is keeping his room clean to get a mini-Milky Way and/or a Dragon Masters book every day.

I'm not sure what he'll read next, but I love seeing him love reading.  He doesn't fill out his reading log, and sometimes he forgets to return his homework, but we are working on routines.

His teacher also just got married and had a week honeymoon.  So I'm sure that they'll get settled into things and he will start to remember.

His worst moments at school are when people call attention to the fact that I am his mom.  I pick up my students from music when he is at recess.  He runs to hide.  When I announced the student council elections--he was MORTIFIED.  His friends keep saying, "There's your MOM, Ben!" or "That's your MOM, Ben!" and this embarrasses him for some reason.  So I just give him hugs as often as I can to rub it in.

This year his extracurriculars include piano (he doesn't love it), choir (he hasn't started loving this yet either), swimming (we did one round of lessons before wrestling started, and he doesn't love breaststroke, which is the focus of Level 5), and wrestling (which started this week--and he's resigned).  Seems like we are punishing this guy with a lot of things he doesn't love.  But he still has plenty of free time for playing with Juliet, our neighbor who is also in his class, and playing with his siblings.

I am so proud of him.  Every morning he gets up at 6:22 with his alarm.  He eats (usually cereal, and I still have to pour the milk thanks to the Costco milk jugs), makes his lunch (except for the pbj sandwich), plays piano and then walks on the treadmill.  I can count on Ben to be doing just what he's supposed to be doing 99% of the time (and tattle on his sisters if they aren't).

Adding a little addendum.  He got this test back this week.  I thought this answer was worth at least 1/2 credit.  Seems like a logical answer!
I'm so glad to be at school with my kiddos!