So I was laying in bed one morning this weekend and Nate decided to come in and hang out.

We bought this today…

Today was day one of middle school! He said he had a good day and only botched his classroom-changing schedule once.

With one day left in his summer vacation before starting back to school tomorrow, Nathan was none too humored by the ironic playing of Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” on the radio while we drove to our dentist’s appointments.

All supplies have been purchased. Most new clothes are in-hand. Locker combination is memorized. Bus stop has been located.

This was Nate’s and my day today… FanExpo Chicago!

Start the countdown, folks! One week until Nate starts middle school!

Nate and I have continued down the horror movie route we started some months ago.

We picked up Nate’s yearbook today and, as he’s wont to do, he scoured every page to find all the pictures of himself he could. Class photos, events, activities, groups, band, wherever.

Nate has been freaking out a little the last couple weeks because he hasn’t yet received his school yearbook. It wouldn’t be a big deal if he wasn’t moving on to middle school next year so he thought he might never see it.

Nate and I went to the Chicago Toy Show at the Kane County Fairgrounds near our house today for their summer show. It was our first time attending the summer edition as we prefer the weather in the spring and fall, but we had C2E2 in the spring and we will likely miss fall for other reasons.

Today, my son asked me, “Dad, I was watching a YouTube video where someone’s dad was trying to say all the sayings that my generation says.”

Nate was at a birthday party for a friend and they had a petting zoo in the backyard as part of the festivities.

Nate is officially an elementary school graduate!

This is how my son thinks…

Mister Nathan’s Dad. That’s me.

This was placed in our front yard this afternoon by forces unknown…

At the bus stop the other day, one of Nate’s friends was trying to razz me. She’s been doing it for a while now calling me “crusty” and “dusty.”

Nate and his buddy Mason got together for a Nerf war today. And they dragged in a few other neighborhood kids, one of whom has never owned a Nerf gun in her life. So Nate gave her one to keep.

C2E2 was today and it was, well, less than great.

This coming Saturday marks our triumphant return to C2E2! Well, it will be more like our 2022 trip than our 2023 one.

Nathan’s buddy came over after school today to hang out. About an hour into their time, Nate came down to make a bag of  microwave popcorn because they decided to watch a movie.

As part of Nathan’s Spielbergian education, today we finished Jaws and Ready Player One.

Tonight, Nathan actually acquiesced (without much cajoling, mind you) to watching E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial with us! He’d seen it before a few years ago and hated it. Absolutely hated it. He always claimed that E.T’s guttural whine freaked him out.

Go figure that Nathan is spending the night with his cousins at my parents’ house and there is absolutely zilch in theaters that Katie and I want to go see. Nothing even that we’d want to go re-watch.

I got an email “reminder” from Nathan’s school that tomorrow he has a half day and the day after he has a fullday off.

Last night, Nathan had his first band concert of the year and it was a doozy!

Just when you think kids don’t pay attention to things, they blow your mind with some random thing proving that they probably pay attention at a totally different level than us oldies do.

You’ve gotta understand one thing… Nathan hates E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. Hates. He was freaked out by the character the first and only time he saw the movie with us and has since refused to watch it again. Flat out refuses.

Nathan was honored tonight by our local Board of Education for a community service project he and several of his fellow student council members did this past November. They adopted a mile of road in our town and cleaned it up!

Nathan’s second eLearning Day (nee “Snow Day”) is going to be happening tomorrow “due to dangerous temperatures at or below negative 30 degrees.”

For once, they weren’t lying about the snow…

In anticipation of the seeming mother of all storms about to hit us here in the west end of the Great Lakes, Nathan was sent home from school with everything he should need for a remote learning day.

…Dungeons… and more dungeons!!

Tonight, Nathan and I joined my brother, his elder daughter (a year older than Nate) and two of my brother’s old friends for a quick Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

Merry Christmas, y’all!