139

Well, against my better judgment, I did it. Brennan will be 2 Thursday. The deal was his hair had to be cut by his birthday.

I cried at the salon. Seriously. And when it was all done (after months of harassment from men in the family and others) Jack said he liked it better long and Joe said he didn't think I would actually do it. And that makes me really, really mad.

Of course I still think he's cute but the long hair was just ... him. Every time I look at him for a split second I am confused. And B doesn't even recognize himself. If you how him the after shot he says "Jack!"

Ask him if he liked his hair cut he says, "Hair bye-bye. Hair all gone."

It makes me want to cry more.

138

Jack had his kindergarten testing Monday. I had picked up at the spring Kindergarten Round Up they would be testing him on the basics ... address, phone number, last name, alphabet, numbers ...

So we've been working on it.
And it paid off.

He kicked serious butt.

In fact, I have to say his teacher seemed impressed.

Maybe it was when he swept reading a full page of numbers to only drop two. And when he reached 15, then 17 he told us there was something "tricky" about them. Turns out, he was right. They're called "Tricky Teens" according to his teacher. These are the only numbers you read right to left. Once she reminded him the trick, he got the rest. Both Joe and I were thrilled. (I had no idea he even knew how to read numbers to be completely honest.)

Or maybe when they reviewed phonics. He had to recognize the letter (they were in no particular order), then reveal its phonics and then come up with a word that starts with that letter. He missed few. U, O, E, Z. Remember, he's 5. There are 26 letters. And when she mis-marked the sheet, he pointed it out to her.

F --- ffff --- fantastic
w --- waaa --- wow
k -- karate (with the the accent he heard Jack Black once use)

She quizzed him on his address. Check.
She quizzed him on his birthday ... little nervous, knew season forgot month. (He later thought of it but it didn't count.)
She quizzed him on days of the week. (He got them all, minus Thursday. He knew as soon as he did.)
She had him count as high as he could go -- 29. He stumbled on 30 and then wasn't sure. So she cut him off at 29.
The she asked him his phone number.

"I will give you my dad's number. It's really the best one."

Yes. He really said that.

At the end, we were all smiles and she asked him if he had any questions or anything he wanted to talk about ... so my son decided to take this opportunity to let her know Mama wasn't buying him a new backpack but he was hoping Santa would hook him up with a Star Wars bag. (Sweet.)

He leaned back and scanned the room and sighed with a smile.

"Yeah, this is gonna be fun. Now can I go play with those toys?"

And being the sideline mom I suddenly am, I had to push her to tell us what she thought. I was looking for the two little words ... "gifted and talented" but I got: VERY well prepared.

I am going to assume its the PC way teachers say: Hellya, he's smart.

I asked her if we'd get an accessment of her findings. She seemed surprised and said ...

"Well this is the start of his file. It stays here and will be with him through his senior year."

Wow. My kid officially has a permanent record. Creepy. (Immediate flashbacks to high school, btw.)

Wonder what else show up in there in the next 13 years?
Maybe I don't want to know.

137

So, we ended up telling Jack about the surprise about 7 minutes after I finished my post last night. And in retrospect I don't think we should've but I got voted down by Joe and Jack. His first reaction was great though and and he immediately gushed with excitement for his brother.

I think Brennan suspected something was going on as we were shuffled from one room. As we entered the Breslin conference room, he screeched by me yelling "Ellllmooooo!"

They shuffled us into this non-descript (anti-climatic) room where we sat and waited. Then the "handlers" came in and let us know they didn't know which characters were coming and they had to "rest their voices" ... hmmm, thought that was a little lame. The voice of Elmo probably trademarked his squeak.

Jack was pretty excited by this point, even a smidge nervous. The handler had said the monsters were pretty big. Jack wondered out loud what that meant. I soothed him and told him not to worry, just more to hug.

Then in walked Elmo and Abby Cadaby. I quickly looked at Brennan (while trying to illegally use the video camera) ... he was pretty stoked. He built into his yellow "elmo. Elmo. ELmo. ELMo. ELMO!" Unfortunately, we'd picked the area that went last so the poor kid had to watch all the other munchkins hug up on the monsters.

We sat and watched as Joe tried to keep Brennan detained. That was fairly pointless.

Jack leaned over to me, saying ...
"Hey. Um. Mama. I need your ear down here."
"K"
"Um. I think there may be people inside there. Is there?"
I looked at his face. His eyes were searching my face trying to read the truth. I debated about telling him only because I felt a little sad that the fun would be wiped a way a bit. But then I decided I may as well tell him or run the risk of him not believing me on anything.
"Yes. But it's still fun, right?"
"Sure. Don't worry. I won't tell Brennan."

But as soon as it was our turn, the boys didn't hesitate. In fact, Brennan went right up to each of them to give them a huge hug. We were able to pose and both boys got more time with them than the other kids because we were last. By the end, Brennan was handing out fist bumps and waving wildly.

The good thing about the Breslin Center is they keep concession cost family-friendly. The kids were able to split a pop corn and a pretzel. And they didn't even finish either. Brennan was in heaven. Shouting MO! Screaming for Coookeee and dancing all around. It was insane how empty the arena was ... another wake up to the state's state.

Question: Why make a Sesame Street show for kids last an hour and a half long, with intermission? B wasn't really into the show after the potty break.

He and spent time moving from seat to seat in the Breslin eventually making our way up to the vendor level. I am pretty sure that was his plan from the beginning.

Sesame Street ain't dumb. They have over-priced booths every 20 feet or so, I swear. And Brennan was in love with a ridiculously large Elmo that was ridiculously expensive. Once we were out on the floor, he full sprinted to the nearest booth to point it out to me. And when I said no, he flung himself on the floor. He then dragged his body like a solider in combat over closer while moaning in pain .... "eeeelllllmmmmmooooo, pleeees. ellllmmmmmooo" with huge tears rolling down his face. The pop guy laughed out loud.