Preschool is the Bomb. Kindergarten is the Atomic Bomb.

This has been a week of firsts.

Yesterday I took Calvin Mackay on a dAddie dAte and we went to his very first BYU Football game in Cougar stadium.  They played Weber State which made for an interesting internal conflict with CMB because he recently took swimming lessons here at Weber State.  At once point in the game the Cougars scored another touchdown and feeling a bit defensive for his beloved Wildcats Mackay yelled out, "I hate BYU!"  Well that's just not ok.  So he was told he was going to have to walk all the way home if he hated BYU.  And that it was a really long walk.  Everyone sitting in the stands around us was listening in to how he and I were going to handle this situation because it had just become a power struggle.  And then we made a nice compromise, he could say that he loved Weber State Wildcats and he loves BYU.  An agreement which he quickly adopted.  A minute later of thinking on it he said to the whole crowd, "but I really do hate the Utes."  That's my boy.

Brigham had his first day of Kindergarten last week.  His teacher's name is Miss Ashby.  He went to the library and bought a book entitled, "The Encyclopedia of Star Wars Characters" which we have been reading to him and found him hiding in his room reading himself non-stop ever since he brought it home.  I remember hearing that one parent taught their kid more about math by letting them play Pokemon card games than they ever could have with flashcards because that is what the child was interested in.  Brigham is really into Star Wars and consequently getting to be quite the little reader.

We went to his Kinder Open House two weeks ago and I said to Miss Ashby, "We're not too worried about Beeg's academic standing because he's doing just fine.  We are just warning you that he is going to be kind a difficult behavioral kid for you.  The one you go home and night and complain about to your family.  I'm saying this because Michelle had several of those she taught when we were dating and I heard a lot about those kids.  She handled it well.  But I don't think she believed me.

Then the first day of school came.

And the second.  Brig came home with a thumbs down both days and he told his mother with a few tears in his eyes, "I don't want to go to school anymore.  Can't we just have school at home?"  My heart broke, that's the last thing I wanted to hear.

So his third day of school was last Friday.  I had the day off so I dropped him off and then picked him up in the afternoon (half-day).  As we were walking away from Miss Ashby she stopped us and said "Brigham, you have something in your backpack that your Dad needs to read right now.  You need to pull that note out and give it to your Dad so we can talk about it."  We worriedly dug into the Bumblebee Transformer bag and found the slip of paper.  As I read the paper my countenance must have obviously changed. "Brigham had a great day today.  He was listening and following directions.  Keep up the good work. - Miss Ashby"

Then she kind of laughed and said, "Brigham you should have seen the look on your father's face when I said you needed to read that note.  Have a good weekend guys."

Calvin Mackay had his first day of preschool on Friday.  It was a thumbs sideways day.  You see, he came home from school a bit upset with The Little Red School House.  He brought a dinosaur with him for show and tell, because show and tell is what you do at school.  But the teacher had a schedule and it didn't include bringing toys to school.  That's a quick way to fall out of grace with Mister Dinosaur himself.  He's pretty vocal about how little he likes preschool right now.  Maybe it'll get better when he can bring a dinosaur.

I used to think that preschool was to give kids a leg up on academics.  So they could learn numbers and letters and socialize.  Turns out it's so that mothers can have a much needed 3 hour break in their day.  Worth everything we spend on it if you ask me.