Fifth Disease

After five years of the preschool experience, I’ve seen a letter a year (at least, it seems) warning of the presence of Fifth Disease in one classroom or another.  We managed to escape it’s rashy glare until now. 

On Sunday, while in church I noticed this horrible rash on Thomas’ cheeks.  I thought maybe he was having a reaction to the detergent still in his shirt since he was wearing a collared shirt and it was rubbing on his cheeks.  It would be an odd occurrence, but Thomas has been known to have sensitive skin, so I just never say never.

It didn’t really get better when he got home and changed, but he had no other symptoms so we didn’t worry about it.  This is what he looked like a day or two later (and yes, in need of a trim!)

That night I went to check on him before I went to bed (as I do every night) and since he had removed his shirt, I could see he had welts and a rash over his entire torso.  I immediately consulted Dr. Google and decided it must be Fifth Disease.  With Fifths, the child has the symptoms of a cold and maybe a mild fever and headache and then they get better.  Then a week or two after the first onset of “cold” symptoms, the rash appears.  They are no longer contagious, but man, it is alarming!  Oh, and yes, they had the cold symptoms sometime between Christmas and New Year’s and Thomas complained of a headache once or twice during that time (which isn’t completely abnormal for him).

You can’t see well from this picture, but the rash now covers his entire torso and down his arms and legs. 

Craziness. It should go away within a week. Let’s hope!

Oh, and of course the day after Thomas’ rash first appeared, our little Doodlebug didn’t want to be left out.

So far his rash on the rest of his body isn’t as bad, but man…it’s sad looking at these two this week!

Six

When I am stressed or have something on my mind, the writer in me comes out and I have to write to feel better.  I wrote this about six days after the Newtown shooting.  I thought I’d share it here in all it’s unedited glory because it’s too depressing to pour over and edit…but I want to share anyway.

Up until last Friday, what I feared most for my first grader is that he would be exposed to peanuts at school. After the elementary school shootings in Connecticut and the horrifically tragic death of 20 first graders, my fears have moved into realms I never could have begun to imagine.

When mass shootings occurred in our country before, I have been moved to tears and have felt tremendous sorrow for the losses of others far away. But this has been different. For those children hundreds of miles away, I have sobbed. I have weeped. My heart has ached. I have, at times, struggled to catch my breath. I have felt this so deeply because it is so unimaginable and unconscionable to so violently take the lives of such innocent 6- and 7-year old children.

But the hardest part is that I know exactly what a classroom of first graders looks like. My son is six and I can’t help but think of those blessed souls that were lost in Connecticut without picturing my son and his friends.

Raising a six-year old is a wonderful time to be a parent; it should not be a time to grieve. Six year olds are full of wide-eyed innocence. They believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and superheroes. They look at their future occupations in terms of what they really want to do without thought of the dollar signs attached to it. My son wants to be a police officer. One of his friends wants to be a cheese taster. Another wants to be a “fire girl.”

Their dreams are big and limitless. When the sun is up (and sometimes when it is down) they never stop going. If I could bottle the boundless energy of a six-year old, I’d be a millionaire.

Six-year olds are learning to read and they are excited to do it. My son fusses every night when we make him turn off his light, stop reading and go to sleep. He wears pajamas with cute characters on them and wants slippers that look like stuffed animals and make funny noises when he walks. He’s too young to worry too much about looking “cool” around his friends. He loves his mommy fiercely and wants to be like his Daddy when he grows up.

First graders still have pajama days at school. At recess they chase girls and girls chase them. Boys think girls are funny and laugh or wrinkle their noses at the thought of kissing them. The best part of a first graders day is often lunch time when they can test their “trading” and bartering skills with their friends. My son was proud to trade half his sandwich for a few Doritos. But he felt a little jilted when he gave up two vanilla sandwich cookies for a bite of a gingerbread cookie. These are the things you live and learn when you are a six-year old. You don’t learn how to protect yourself from the most evil monster no one could have ever imagined.

The world of a six-year old is seen from a different viewpoint…your waist. So much of the world is above them. They are about four-feet tall and quickly growing into their lanky arms and legs. Some are missing teeth (though not mine, he’s still waiting for that mountainous milestone). They spend so much time looking up, figuratively and literally, to the world around them. They trust in adults.

I don’t want to even start imagining what those precious little children were thinking when that monster came bounding into their classroom that morning. This is not a world they should ever have to know. I haven’t told my children about what happened because they are too young. One is four, the other is six and they are too young to know anything about the evil lurking in this world.

Hopefully our country will learn from this tragedy, but unless they know first graders like I know first graders, it might not be so easy. It’s going to be a long time before I can look at the children coming out of his school, out of his class and not think of that man, of those many grieving parents and of a country that needs to do better. All I want is for being six-years old to be a time of blissful ignorance again. And I want to go back to thinking the greatest threat to my first grader is peanuts.

Christmas at Parker’s school

On Tuesday morning, Parker’s class performed their Christmas songs along with another 4s class.  It was adorable, as always, and Parker seemed to take his performance quite seriously!  He was focused on his teacher and sung all the songs and did all the hand motions.  He was too cute.

For the most part, Parker had his songs down right.  But he did insist that in Joy To the World, the line was not “In every heart, prepare him room” but “In every heart, prepare he broom.”  He was quite insistent that his music teacher had said just that.  I tried to convince him otherwise.  Logic was futile.

The above photo was to the lyric, “What can I give him?  Give him my heart.”  Too sweet.

His class is on the front row.  The other class is in the back.  The other two 4s classes held their performance on another day.  And at the end, as usual, there was a visit from Santa himself.  Santa looks like he is needs to eat some Christmas night cookies!

Afterwards his class hosted the parents/guests in their class.  He presented me with his Christmas wreath of painted hands.  I should have taken a picture of it.  Oops.  At least we now have one that matches his big brothers.  I love those sweet mementoes of their childhood!

A quick pic with a few of his buddies…

Today was his last day of school until the new year (sniff! sniff!) and his class had a Christmas party. 

Such cute little snacks!

And then to finish the day, a gift from his teachers and a goodbye hug!

Thomas still has one more week of school.  Not sure what we’ll do next week with little brother but we’ll have to come up with something!

Parker plays soccer

Parker was so happy in the spring when he got his first chance at team sports with t-ball, so he jumped at the chance to play soccer this fall.  He’s been playing for about a month and he really seems to enjoy it.  Thomas is playing too, so we spend lots of time at the youth fields!

Parker has already scored his first goal!  It was his second or third game and he was so excited it was the sweetest thing.  He is often so determined on the soccer field.  He follows the ball and works really hard.  When he scored his goal he looked right at me the moment after he scored it and his face was nothing but absolute, pure joy.  He exclaimed, “I scored a goal mommy!” and then ran over and gave me a hug.  I got quite teary and wanted to melt right then and there.

Here are a few pics from his first games:

He was the second youngest on his team (I think), but again, he was the tallest.  It is so crazy how much he has grown in the past year.  Other teams see him and think he is older and more experienced/talented just because of his size.  I guess they are pleasantly surprised when they realize he is quite a beginner!

I have been so proud of him (and Thomas).  We’ll be happy to take a break in the winter, but hopefully they’ll both be willing to play baseball (or t-ball) in the spring!

Dock jumpers

I’m not quite sure why it took us so long to get the boys to try this old summer ritual.  I remember many summer days of my youth filled with jumping off the end of the dock (at quite a few docks all along the Pinopolis cove!).  I mentioned the idea to the boys and they were quite a bit skeptical.  I think they flat-out refused at first.  But Parker was a little more willing to give it a try, and finally his think-everything-through-thoroughly big brother decided maybe he’d give it ONE jump.

Parker went first.  Of course.

And he was quickly scooped up by Papa, just as promised.

Soon Thomas followed, and before long we couldn’t get them to stop!

The boys had a blast and cannot wait to do it again.  I foresee many days of dock jumping in the future.  Too bad the summer is quickly coming to an end…but there’s always next year!

New bikes, sort of

We decided to finally get Thomas a new bike.  He’d been riding on his same 16” Spiderman bike for years, so we thought he was finally due for an upgrade.  So he got the new 20” bike, and Parker upgraded from his 12” bike (that was starting to look like a clown bike with him on it!) to the Spiderman one.  He’s happy, Thomas is happy… and everyone wins!

Parker dropped the training wheels a while ago.  He has always amazed me at how quickly he picked that up!  He definitely got an earlier start on the two-wheeled driving than his brother!

We’ll see how long it takes before it’s time to upgrade our tall Parker to a 20” too!

Boys in the bubblebath

Parker got a new little motorboat today and was eager to take a bath and test it out. Finally, as I was starting dinner, I obliged (but made him take it in our bathtub so I could watch him more closely).

He had so much fun (well until the jacuzzi jets got stuck on and the bubbles were about to start oozing over the side of the tub and Parker freaked out because he couldn't find his new boat in the mountains of bubbles!). Anyway, when I got the jets to turn off, Thomas was excited for a turn of his own.

Since I am posting from my phone, the pics have to be at the end.