Perhaps I don’t give Justin enough credit. His various therapists have been working with him on expected vs unexpected behaviors (to help him understand social nuances) and apparently he’s been taking it to heart — when we talked to him about the incident on the playground, he knew full well that the kids shouldn’t have been doing that to him. And the recess supervisors tell me he doesn’t hesitate to go to one of them when he has a problem, so I guess he knows how to handle himself. Maybe I don’t need to worry about him as much as I think I do.

Justin was so excited about his Christmas concert at school this week that he was literally vibrating as we waited for the school doors to open. I don’t get how a kid with anxiety issues can be so thrilled about performing in front of large crowds, but hey. His class did a really neat skit about how Santa got his job, and each kid had to say a line into the microphone — they did great, and it was super cute.

Brayden’s preschool had their Christmas party this week (an hour of standing around in the park in sub-zero temperatures…ho ho ho). Santa usually comes to deliver presents to all the kids, but apparently Santa was charging some not-so-jolly rates this year, so they had Mrs. Claus come instead. She gave Brayden a Cars storybook collection (courtesy of Mom, of course) that he loves, so we’ll call the party a success, even if I froze my toes.

Justin went to his very first play date at a friend’s house a couple days ago (first one without Mom, I mean) and it was a tremendous success. He’s had lots of play dates, but always at our house, at first because I didn’t feel comfortable dropping him off somewhere and later because no one was asking him to come over. I finally just asked one of the moms to have him over for the practice, and she was totally willing to help out, so we gave it a try. He had lots of fun and his friend even asked if we could do it again soon — that just made my heart sing.

Christmas break has officially begun, and while I would normally shudder at the prospect of 17 straight days of the kids not being in school, we have enough going on right now that I think it’ll be OK. There’s even a moderate amount of snow right now and I think we’re going to try sledding this morning. It should be good.