First day of school

Today is the first day of second grade and the beginning of Meg's last year at preschool. We clearly took a lot of pictures this morning.

I thought this was so funny. He often looks very skeptical.

Now he's happy again!

Yellow belt

Andy's been taking jiujitsu through the city. It's been a good fit of practicing wrestling-type moves (not the official term, certainly) which is helping with his confidence. He has expressed worries before that other kids would pick on him. None have really, but this is helping him feel he could hold his own.

After 12 weeks, he tested for his "yellow belt", the next step up from a "white belt." He had to demonstrate five moves against an older kid and then he sparred with one of the two girls in his class also up for a yellow belt. I videotaped the sparring.

It was actually kind of awesome watching them wrestle. I was really impressed with how well he held his own and how well he stayed in it. After this, he sparred with this same girl one more time. Then they practiced one kid vs two kids. Andy did that as both the double-team and the singleton. His sensei's point of the double-team is to help the kids handle themselves in case of an unfair fight. I like that the class focuses on self-defense. I think that's such a useful thing for a child to know.

He was so proud of himself afterward that he actually told me he was happy. That's a rarity. It's like Simon Cowell saying he liked your performance.