Last of our special Mondays

For most of the past three years, Jamie and I have spend every Monday together, usually just the two of us, usually (I think five out of my six semesters) without any school. My goal on these Mondays has been to cram as much German as possible into the time between J's getting up in the morning and his going to bed at night. 

In the early days we did most of our L2 game routines on Monday. For the last two plus years, I've aimed for a solid hour each of reading, audiobook listening, and viewing; along with a long and conversationally intensive walk, with the explicit goal of introducing new vocabulary and progressive grammar/syntax; as well as chatty mealtimes, letter-writing to his fictional L2-pen pals, etc.

Other that his piano lesson since last November, I've always deliberately avoided making plans to spend time with people on Monday, so that we could speak only German and make it as L2-immersive as possible. 

I feel that these special Mondays have played a crucial role in making J as fluent as he is in German.(For example, he just said this, verbatim: "Ach, es ist herrlich, an einem so regnerischen Tag ein warmes Bad zu nehmen!"). They have also deepened our relationship. 

But now our special Mondays are over. Tomorrow is J's first day of kindergarten. We will never have a regular free day together during the week. (Ok, there will be the summer.) 

I have always been worried that the start of regular school will bring about a change in J's attitude to German, which, reinforced by the reduction of time he spends speaking it during the week, will start to put serious daylight between his L1 and L2 abilities (virtually none so far; in certain areas his L2 is better) and erode his desire to speak German. I'm no longer as worried as I used to be. It's inevitable that his English will now improve faster than his German. I'm cool with that. I will do what I can to keep his German progressing. My biggest goal now is to get him able to read on his own in German with an ease approaching to that in English, and to want to do so. 

As for desire to speak Geman, well, I don't think there's going to be a big problem with that anytime soon. He seems to truly love the language.