Jack day

Today was Jack's "Moving Up" day at school, which basically means he's "graduating" from Kindergarten and entering the 1st grade next year. So despite his protests that he wanted to wear shorts and a T-shirt, we dressed him up in nice pants, shoes, and a shirt with a collar, and sent him off to his last day as a Kindergartner. Sort of; he'll still be going there for another week and a half.

We gathered in the auditorium with all the other parents, grandparents who lived nearby, and their cameras. The kids filed in and up to their seats on stage, most looking serious, some with smiles frozen across their faces. We all said the Pledge of Allegiance, teachers said a few words, they got their diploma. Jack looked serious, businesslike. Every once in a while he'd catch our eye and give a little smile and wave. The 100 or so kids across three classes all got their little certificates -- Jack was near the end of the alphabet in the final class -- and then filed off to enjoy cookies and juice boxes while parents snapped pictures. Pretty cute.

We met up in the lunch room to find Jack loading up on brownies and Oreos. Excellent. Snapped pictures of him and Mrs. Glockenberg, his teacher, and The Coach, his gym coach. I sort of apologized for the fact that Jack sometimes wore Red Sox attire, as evidently The Coach is a big Yankees fan. He laughed.

On the way out to the car afterward, Jack crouched down to examine a bug on the sidewalk. He watched it for a minute while we waited. Then he stood up, wiped his hands off on his good pants, and walked to the car, leaving kindergarten behind.

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We went to McDonald's for lunch. Jack ate all his nuggets, as usual, but mostly he was pretty thrilled with his toy. "I can't believe I got Kung Fu Panda!" he said. "I mean, I could have just got the BIRD. All he does is SPIN."

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After lunch Jack and I went to our two banks. At one he got a lollipop, and at the other he got to see the cool old-fashioned Drive-Thru (or is it new? I don't know) where you put everything in a plastic tube and it gets sucked into the bank, and then shot back out to you. He thought it was almost as cool as I did.

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We went to the library. He got a dinosaur book for him ("I like nonfiction books," he said) and a book for Kate by the same person who did 'Click, Clack, Moo.' Then he saw Battleship, and we played that. Battleship can be a really slow game with a 6-year-old. First off, he kept calling out, "5-9" and "6-3," while I explained he had to say one letter and one number. Second, he thinks a lot about each choice, and takes a while to put in his pegs, and calls the same numbers more than once, and tends to group his choices whether he gets a hit or not. (I-9. Miss. I-10? Miss. I-8? Miss. H-10?) It was a long game until I started giving him 3 guesses per turn, and said he only had to hit a ship to sink it (because really, isn't that how things would have gone anyway?).

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Emily and I took him to the park to ride his bike. There was no one around so we owned the tennis courts. And after some prodding and running alongside and letting go of the seat and him putting his feet down, he did it -- he rode. And a huge, goofy smile broke out on his face as he rode clunkily along (he's probably a little too big for the bike now), and continued on, and waved us away as we tried to help him more.

Graduating from Kindergarten, riding his bike, playing Battleship, getting Kung Fu Panda at McDonald's. Big day for Jack.