The new school year is underway, and with it comes the usual assortment of crises, drama, and schedule conflicts. I’ve included the traditional first-day-of-school pictures above; sadly, because the kids started on different days, each was taken solo, rather than together.

Joe started sixth grade at Willow Glen Middle this year, and seems to be adjusting well to the complexities of a middle school schedule. He complains that his classes are too easy, but I hope that things will pick up a bit as we get further into the semester. His one stumbling block, as usual, is organization. His Language Arts / Social Studies teacher dropped us a note a couple weeks ago asking us to work with him to get his binder cleaned up—it was, in her words, a mess. And, he’s already lost points on an assignment that he believes he turned in, but lacks any evidence supporting that assertion, because he threw out a bunch of old assignments that were crumpled in the bottom of his backpack. Still, his grades are excellent, and he’s clicking with his teachers. He even went to the first dance of the year, which seems very grown-up even if he called home asking to be picked up a little more than halfway through because it was “boring”.

There has been a bit of drama among Joe and his friends, but that’s a story for another time.

Julia is enjoying eighth grade so far at UPA, and she’s been doing a fantastic job of keeping up with her work and just getting things done. As a result, she has a lot more free time in the afternoon after school, and evenings at home are much more relaxed and pleasant; we haven’t once had to stay up past 11:00 working on an assignment due the next day. She’s looking forward to the possibility of going on the eight grade trip to Washington, DC later this year; if she’s able to make it, we’re hoping it will go better than mine did.

Finally, William kicked off his second (and final) year of preschool last week at Discovery Parent Child Preschool. He attends Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays this year with Teacher Sally, and he’s palpably excited about it every school day.

Perhaps the best part of the new school year for William is the fact that he’s finally fully potty trained. He tiptoed around the idea of using the toilet for a year or so, and then moved on to urinating in the potty with gradually increasing frequency, but actually pooping anywhere other than his diaper seemed completely out of reach for the longest time. Over the last couple months, it’s finally clicked, and he’s worn underwear full time for a few weeks now. We’ve handed off the changing table to another family and disposed of the diaper genie on Craigslist; thirteen years after Julia was born, it looks like we are finally done with diapers.

Now we just have to work on wiping.

As an extra bonus that likely interests only me, I recently scanned and cleaned up the photos I had of the Wong Family trip to California, way back in 1982. It was my first-ever plane trip, and represented the farthest I’d ever been from home. As was my wont, I developed an ear infection within the first couple days of the trip, necessitating a hurried trip to a clinic—it may have actually been the emergency room—for antibiotics. Adding to the excitement, while Dad worked at the local Motorola office, Mom took us shopping at the Vallco Mall, which is technically still open for sufficiently broad definitions of the word “open,” where the rental car’s battery died.

Looking back, the photos are a fascinating snapshot of the area 35 years ago, and it’s interesting to see how landmarks like the Winchester Mystery House, the Carmel Mission, and the mountains across the bay from Santa Clara (the Diablo Range, if I’m reading the Wikipedia article correctly) have changed over the decades. For fun, I composed a 2011 photo of Julia and Joseph in Muir Woods with a similar shot of Bill and me at a similar, if not necessarily identical, location. I love the comparison; one thing that stands out to me about the earlier photograph is our neatly pressed jeans, highlighting one small way in which the world has changed.

Gallery: California 1982