Hyrum moving on: All Growed Up

Enough people have told me I left them hanging after the last edition that my decent respect for the opinions of mankind compels me to pen one last brief post.

The compromise worked splendidly. On his third day of school (Wed), I had worked out with him that his Mario doll would accompany him to and home from school if he could be happy. He kept a stiff upper lip with effort on Wednesday and then I left town for a conference early the next morning.

By the time I got back, things were peaceful and normal. He had decided to keep count of how many days he had attended school. Monday morning I came in, asked if he was ready to go to school, and he looked up from the bed and said, "Six." Yes, today will be your sixth day. Mommy convinced him to change the counting to just repeating the 5 days of school each week. But the next two weeks had only 4 and he lost count and interest somewhere along the way.

That Wednesday (day 8) was my turn to take him to school again since I had some morning errands to run also. He was happy in the car. We walked to the classroom. While standing in the closet area hanging up his coat, he said "Daddy, sit and talk with me."

So I sat and asked him what he wanted to talk about. No real answer to that. We talked about school and that he was a good boy. He stood up on his own and walked out to face the class. He started looking for a toy, then ran over to sit in the lap of one of the teacher's helpers. I waved goodbye to him and just barely got a response. He may even have needed prompting....

I left greatly stunned. He's all ready for college. Just like Cosby said: 'Kindergarten exists primarily to teach kids to be able to say goodbye to their parents without crying. After the second day, they got nothing for you.' After the emotion of my last drop off, it was discombobulatingly anti-climactic. All for the best, of course, ... but my little boy is growing up.

Not that he won't put up a fight about that, though. Last night the song "I'll Make a Man Out of You" came on, and we tried teaching Hyrum what it means that little Lavinia will be a girl. We asked who would become a man.

No, not mommy. Yes, Daddy will be a man. Who else? ... Hyrum will be a man!

"No! I'm just Hyrum."

This morning we read in the Book of Mormon about "raising up seed" which I translated as having children and helping them grow up.
Joy adds, "We will help you grow up to be a good man"
"No. I'm just Hyrum."
I try to compromise: Well, can we help you grow up to be a good boy, then?
"Yes. I'm a boy."
Joy: "Do you want to always be a boy, like Peter Pan?"
"Yes. I'm Hyrum."

I've taken him to school one other morning - he begs for me to take him about once a week and expects Peach/Mommy to do the honors otherwise. Then again he also asked to sit in my lap in the coat closet. He doesn't ask Joy that. It's part of the special father/son going-to-school thing. I like it. I like him.