Kindergarten registration day

Joshy B had his kindergarten registration yesterday. HOORAY! Look how excited he is - playing his Gameboy on the way to school. Just like a real school kid would.

The school he’s going to gives the Brigance K-1 Screen to all incoming students to help identify those with learning disabilities, and to help place kids in the best environment.

Josh was so excited to go to school finally! He had no problem walking off hand in hand with a pretty little teacher to do the test. They came back about 15 minutes later so the teacher could tell me how he did on the test.

He did really well, but he got a couple of things wrong that he absolutely knows (where your shoulders, elbows, heels and ankles are). I proved his knowledge of putting my hand on his shoulder and, as if on cue, he yelled "don't grab my shoulder!" Or maybe it was his elbow. *shrug* Like mother, like son.

He did, however get perfect scores on the printing your full name, knowing your phone number, address, birth date, counting, letter recognition, tracing shapes, motor skills, blah blah blah.

I was very proud and then she said, “He had an issue with the color recognition.” What? Huh? Josh has known his colors for a few years now. Even pink, gray and magenta. WTF?

“He missed blue," she said.

“Blue?” I said, totally incredulous of the situation.

“Yes, blue. I tried to get him to say it numerous times, but he just wouldn’t do it.”

“What did he think blue was?” I asked her, trying not to sound defensive.

“Dark purple.”

Now, as Josh’s mother, this all made complete sense to me. I know the exact shade of blue the object must have been. It had to be indigo. We have a few things in our house that Josh insists are not blue, but dark purple. He’s absolutely right. I think he's a genius.

Apparently, the teacher said to him, “What might someone else call this color?” in a desperate attempt to get him to say blue. My child, the fruit of my loins, has my sharp wit, sense of humor and intolerance for ignorance. He says to her, “Well, it doesn’t matter. Because if they said it was anything but dark purple, they’d be wrong.” My son, the non-conformist. I'm so proud. Hand me a tissue.

He was sad that he didn’t get to stay for recess. I informed him that his whole life, until September, was recess.

Not to be outdone by his own brilliance, later in the evening, he got me good. We were driving to his gym class and were running a little behind. He announces that he has to poop. Like NOW. So, I pull over at a gas station, get him in the bathroom and nothing. Already late, I hurried him back into the car and set out on the way to class.

I was a little irritated and was talking to him about how it was ok that he didn’t have to go, but he should have told me before I cut across traffic, blah blah blah. We stopped at the red light and I was about to talk about wasting people's time when Josh said, “Look Mom…”

In my head, I just couldn't believe that this child was actually going to try and placate me. You know, something like, "Look Mom, I had to hold it for too long and the urge went away." I cut him off with a stern, “Don’t ‘look Mom’ me!”

I glanced back in my rear view mirror. He had a grin on his face as he calmly repeated, “Look Mom, there’s the money you could be saving with Geico.”

I looked up and sure enough: