As seems customary around these parts, Booksin Elementary posts its class lists on the Friday before school starts. Presumably, this strategy is designed to prevent parents from complaining about their kids’ classroom assignments by leaving them as little time as possible to mull them over. I’m not sure it works, however, judging by the amount of grousing we heard outside the school library where the class information was posted (No, it’s not posted online. That would be crazy).

Joe ended up assigned to Mrs. Glenn’s class. She was new to us (and to Booksin), but coincidentally, she’s teaching in Room 3, where Julia had kindergarten with Mrs. Romero. Unfortunately, she missed the first few weeks of class while she recovered from hip surgery that was performed over the summer. Thanks to silly insurance company rules, she couldn’t even come to campus during the day while kids were present until she was off disability. She’s back now, and she and Joe seem to be getting along famously, though she’s asked him to sit at the back of the class since he has a propensity to stand while he’s doing work.

Julia ended up in Mr. Alderette’s class. We heard through the grapevine that he was a bit strict (see the bit above about grousing), but so far, he and Julia have clicked well. In fact, he’s unlocked the heretofore unknown secret to motivating her: stuffed animals. He’s been giving out Beanie Babies—rechristened in this context as Brainy Babies—as rewards for completing online math lessons. So far, Julia has accumulated close to a dozen of these, and is in real danger of being squeezed out of her own bed.

We’ve posted a few pictures from the first couple months of the year, including a few from the time the kids in Joe’s class got a visit from SJ Sharkie, the San José Sharks’ mascot, to commemorate their participation in the Reading is Cool program, a monthly contest in which they track the number of pages they’ve read and the top reader in the class gets a medal at the end of the month. Joe was the winner the first month, so he got a prize from Sharkie; Mrs. Glenn was kind enough to give us a heads-up a week or so in advance, and Julie was able to be there to capture the occasion on video.

To me, the most notable thing about the clip is the fact that Julia would have been completely and utterly unable to handle it, as she’s still possessed by an unmanageable fear of mascots.

Of course, with the start of the school year comes Julia’s birthday. Grandma Flack was in town this year to help us celebrate, and we took the kids out to Benihana for a treat before opening presents at home. Naturally, there are photos. Apologies, though, for the noisy quality of some of the pictures: we’re still relying on our phones as cameras most of the time, and they didn’t do very well in the low-light conditions of our living room this time around.