As you may recall, Julia won the Student of the Month award for her Junior K class just about two years ago. This month, it was Joe’s turn. Julie and I got a letter from the school a few weeks ago letting us know that he had won and asking us to keep it a secret. Then, this past Thursday, we got to surprise him at an all-school assembly, where he got called up on stage with the winners from the other classrooms.

The day was relatively devoid of drama, unlike Julia’s turn in the spotlight. Joe didn’t know what was coming, but he started to catch on when he saw us in the back of the room at the start of the assembly. He was a trooper about getting up on stage, though he did end up chewing on the zipper of his jacket, a habit we haven’t figured out how to break: he can’t actually zip up most of his coats, because the teeth on the zippers are mangled and bent. It’s probably not doing his teeth any good, either.

We have video and pictures from the extravaganza. I apologize for the poor quality of the video. The exposure settings on my camera got confused, so the second half—unfortunately, the part with Joe—is a bit of a mess.