It’s been a busy fall since we returned from our trip to Texas. The kids started school in mid–August—which seems awfully early to me—and Julia had her tenth birthday at the end of the month. As she has pointed out on many an occasion since then, she is no longer a “little girl”: she is in double digits. To celebrate, we have pictures.

Both of the older kids are gradually acclimating to their new classes. Julia seems to have clicked with her teacher, Mrs. Kammann, and has been doing a reasonably good job of getting her work done in class and at home: so far, there have been many fewer battles over homework this year than last year. Of course, some of that may be down to the fact that there seems to be less homework than there was last year, but a positive step is a positive step.

Joe got off to a bit of a rocky start the first couple weeks of school with his teacher, Mr. Alderette, and threw several of what we unaffectionately call baby fits; the name comes from one of his preschool teachers, which should give you a pretty good idea of what kind of behavior we’re talking about. One such incident was bad enough that the school actually called me at work to let me know what had happened: Joe got frustrated that he hadn’t finished a particular project when Mr. Alderette told the class that time was up, and Joe flatly refused to comply. Eventually, the office was called, and the assistant principal had to take Joe out of the classroom to give him a chance to calm down.

That was about a month ago, though, and Joe seems to have adjusted his behavior in the weeks since. We’ve been checking in with jim on a daily basis to see how he’s been doing, and it seems as though things are slowly getting better. He has always had a bit of a hard time dealing with situations in which things go poorly, whether it’s getting problems wrong in class or striking out in baseball, and we’re focused on helping him learn how to deal with those kinds of truly inconsequential failures.

In the meantime, Joe has been working extremely hard to come up to speed on the clarinet. We’re just a few weeks into his first year of band, and he has already progressed to the point that Julie has been encouraging him to try out for the advanced band as soon as tryouts begin. He derives a tremendous amount of pleasure from learning how to play the notes he needs to get through each of the songs, and he keeps pushing ahead every time he practices. He has made a tremendous amount of progress in a very short time, and it’s been delightful to see him working so doggedly to achieve his goals.

Finally, at some point in the last week—it’s hard to say exactly when, because the older kids have been at home for fall break, and things have been chaotic around the house—William took his first, halting steps on his own. He first did it for me yesterday, at Joe’s soccer game, and I managed to capture a few seconds on video, which I’ll edit and upload later. He still has a ways to go before we can really say that he’s walking, but this is an exciting development nonetheless. He remains pretty quick on all fours, so that somewhat reduces his incentive to get up and walk, but I’m sure he will be very happy to be able to chase his big brother and sister around more effectively.

Gallery: Julia’s Birthday & Back to Booksin.