Cameron and his friend Marcus getting in some early-morning playground time.
Jose the crossing guard gets the kids across the street.
Cambo dressed up for school. The dress code gets a little bit more strict every year, with the result that this look, Bugle Boy School Uniform stuff, is right in the zone. Meredith got some dressy clothes to wear to Mass, and she wore them to Cam's first day of school.
Cameron's new teacher, Mrs. Becktold. Mrs. Becktold taught seventh and eighth grade last year and is a stickler for grammar. We are twice delighted by this development.
Since the first grade, Cameron has been expected to say seven things at the start of every school day. We do this because we believe that, while you are what you do, what you do is governed by what you say. We want for Cameron to be a man of virtue, so we start every day with a reminder of the virtues we want him to exhibit in his life.

The seven things are these:

1. Work hard.
2. Study hard.
3. Play hard.
4. Have fun.
5. Be civilized.
6. Look for the best of it.
7. Show me a smile.

Over the summer I made a poster of what I think are the ten most valuable Roman virtues. We're studying Latin, so the virtues are in Latin with English translations. Starting this year, Cameron will be saying these every morning, along with the seven things.

(Maddie and Cathy can say them also, and Cameron has committed himself to saying them whenever he gets angry, the equivalent of counting to ten but with a reminder of the virtues that make us human. For non-Latinists, these are phonetic transliterations: dig-knee-tass, gra-wee-tass, pee-yay-tass, hugh-ma-knee-tass, ware-ee-tass, eye-kwee-tass, no-bill-ee-tass, lih-burr-all-ee-tass, ferr-me-tass, coam-ee-tass. Don't pause for the hyphens, just make the sounds. For all of these words, the syllabic weighting, the barest of stresses, goes on the antepenultimate syllable, which is the Roman way of saying the syllable before the syllable before the last syllable (that is, the third from the last, the first in three syllable words, the second in four syllable words).)

Cameron Alexander Swann, third-grader...