The end of summer break and the start of school this week did not come as a harsh reality for at least one child in the house.

He was fine with going back to school. He was looking forward to it and was ready. There was definitely no sleepy child on the first day that had to be drug out of bed and forced to get dressed. He was not upset that he had to tuck in his shirt for one of the first times in three months or wear socks with shoes.

There were no issues with any of that, but there was the return of rules and order in a school setting that will surely take some adjusting. I’m just hoping the transition into that world is not too rough on him and consequently us.

Unlike Beckett, who entered second grade, Carson, who goes to school next week, is not ready for school. He’s pretty laidback about everything, but he’s clearly not into getting back to school. Since all things seem to even out, I’m guessing getting Carson to school next Tuesday morning could be a battle of wills.

Carson enjoying watching as his big brother packed up for school this week and headed out the door each morning. He embraced the fact he was not included in the first-day pictures and got to hang back for the day.

Carson seems to be in denial for the most part. At one point, as we were talking about school this week, he put his fingers on my lips and squeezed them shut, making it clear he didn’t want to hear anything more about the topic.

More of that is coming this weekend as we increase the talk of school, which will be a full day for him this year with kindergarten.

As he gets older, we are trying to let Beckett make his own decisions.

For instance, with this school year, we decided we would give him a certain amount of money for ice cream or snacks at lunch to last the entire week. We figured it would give him a chance to budget his money and see how it goes. After the first day, the three dollar bills we gave him to last the week somehow grew to more than $3.50 — a combination of nickels, quarters and dimes.

When I asked him about it, he was bewildered as well, saying he didn’t know how it happened but there’s no reason to dwell on it because it worked out in the end.

I’m not sure what he was talking about there and before I could even question him about it he pointed out something that didn’t go well on his first day.

He decided he didn’t want a lunch box this year because we did the meal plan anyway. Instead of packing a drink in his lunch box, he just wanted to take his sports bottle filled up with water each day.

Pam and I thought we should put it in the freezer the night before, assuming it would melt by the time lunch rolled around. Well, it turns out most of it did melt but that the straw inside the drink remained frozen. He improvised and just took the lid off, but he was quick to answer “not good” when I asked him how the bottle worked out.

That was a pretty solid parenting fail there.

One of the things I missed with having infants and toddlers was driving with the windows down and the sunroof open.

That’s just not an option when they are babies. For us, it remained that way for a while because our kids struggled with seasonal allergies. It was such an issue that I almost forgot how much I enjoyed the feeling of freedom that comes with cruising with the fresh air blowing through the car.

Over the course of this summer, the kids both have seemed to embrace the wind in their hair and have particularly enjoyed the loud music that comes with it.

Beckett fancies himself quite the disc jockey so now anytime we get in the car he wants my phone so he can play some songs from a list he created of his favorite tunes. He has about a dozen songs of all sorts of genres in his play list, from Maroon 5, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift to Bruno Mars, Bon Jovi and the Black Eyed Peas.

With a dance party ensuing between them in the back seat, I particularly enjoy seeing Beckett hold the phone over his head in some sort of ode to John Cusack in the famous scene from “Say Anything,” which he has never seen. He holds it over his head as he and his brother shake their rear ends in their seats.

One day recently we were driving on Route 50 with the windows down and the kids were jamming to Uptown Funk in the backseat. All of a sudden a squirrel ran out on the road and I was unsuccessful in avoiding it. Both kids turned in their seats backwards to see what it was. Beckett saw it but I don’t think Carson did.

Carson turned to Beckett and signed, “What?” Beckett told him not to worry that Daddy just ran over a squirrel.

Carson put his hands together to pray but never did stop jamming to Uptown Funk.