Sozlet stories

sozobe--

This morning I read a feature in the newspaper about what local pre-schools and day care centers are doing to stop The Spread of Sniffles.

I'm sure you do all the wash-your-hands, don't-pick-your-nose, cover-your-mouth when... stuff with the Sozelet, but reminders can't hurt.

Now if everyone were a mother with an eye for basic sanitation....

That's impressive, "realize" for a 3-yr-old -- and she's newly 3 too, right? (I remember you just had a bunch of birthdays.)

Couple more things:

First, she has a definite sense of style, it's interesting. She dresses herself most days. Today she's wearing her "Rock it!" shirt -- dark pink with green, black, red, and orange over heather gray -- with this skirt:



It looks really cool!

Then, I'm always talking about her art, here's a fairly typical drawing (I actually wanted to scan a different one but E.G. stole it to put up in his office -- grr.)



It started life as a letter to me and E.G., hence the upside-down "Mama" and "Papa" and the "stamp" in the corner. But that picture is of Rapunzel -- she's up in the tower, the figure with the pointy hat is the witch, and the figures are of the prince climbing up the hair -- it's all him, just showing his progress. :-)

She's starting back to preschool tomorrow. Have had lots of great discussions with her teachers, including that they'll call if any other kids are sent to school sick and I can go pick her up. Plus being vigilant about making sure she washes her hands there, giving her food separately rather than sharing from a communal bowl, etc. I'm cautiously optimistic.

:smile:

Soz, that picture is amazing. So is the skirt. She sounds like an absolute doll.

I wish I had the habit, and had taught it to my daughter, of coughing into my sleeve instead of my hand. We were all taught to cover our mouths when coughing/sneezing, but to get those germs all over your hand makes no sense when they could be better isolated on your sleeve!

Hindsight!

Perhaps those of us who learn from experience can give a good name to "hindsight".

Totally!

I've had an ever-so-slightly prickly exchange with the mom of sozlet's best friend -- this is the kid who keeps being sent to school sick. They're very huggy, hand-holdy best friends, and while I really like this girl and like what I know of the mom except for this excruciating flaw (sending her kid to school sick, often), when best friend gets sick, sozlet gets sick. Best friend doesn't get ear infections, sozlet does. Best friend gets a cold, recovers, gets a cold, recovers; sozlet gets a cold, gets an ear infection, gets a fever of 105+, and gets a burst eardrum.

(GRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr...)

So we're taking all of these precautions but all it will take is bf being sent to school sick again and boom.

So I've had about 3 exchanges each -- 6 emails total -- with bfm (best friend's mom), with increasing pointedness about how the stakes are actually rather high and it's quite important that sozlet stay well until March 2nd and why. (SO KEEP YOUR KID HOME IF SHE'S SICK!) Got ambiguous, friendly responses -- wasn't clear if she picked up on it. She was talking about, in passing (after some vacation details) how both of her kids had fevers and malaise and crankiness last week "but that's all". Sentence structure was (paraphrase) "not sick, just fever and malaise..." WHAT IS BEING SICK THEN???

In my last email I was quite pointed, saying how pleased I was that the teacher agreed to call me if any kids WERE sent to school sick so I could pick up sozlet, weight off my mind. (Bracketed by friendly chattiness and wishes that I could just not worry about it but reminding myself that it's important, etc...) She hasn't responded to that one yet.

We'll see.

Sozobe--

I never did figure out the rules for the Motherhood Sweepstakes.

You are saying, "My child is vulnerable."

She is replying, "My kids are tought and I don't make a fuss about 'little things'."

Personally, hearing "My kid gets sicker than your kid" wouldn't threaten my motherhood.

Obviously Mother of Best Friend doesn't want to examine her own rationale for dropping her sick daughter off to share the germs.

Mother of Best Friend is stretched to her own limits--and feeling guilty about sending her sick daughter off to strangers.

I'm afraid that that if Sozolet's eardrums make the Mother of Best Friend feel guilty about her mothering, that Sozolet's eardrums are going to come in second.

I'm reminded of the "why should we ban peanuts just because a few preschool kids are deadly allergic and may curl up and die?" line of argument.

This woman may have mothered a Best Friend, but her convenience is more important to her than Sozolet's eardrums.

Mother Tigers are genetically programmed to regard every other tiger as an enemy. You're going to have to accquire a selective Mother Tiger mentality.

Hold your dominion.

Good points all, Noddy.

Yup.

At this point it is more putting quite a bit of energy into keeping Mama Tiger down than vice versa -- I don't want to overreact.

If after all of this there is a further episode of cluelessness, then I am well prepared to be more direct and confrontational if need be. The girls love each other though and have so much fun together, so I'd hate to have health trump friendship...

Actually, I admit that part of what I'm hoping from sozlet's delayed return to preschool (it started Jan 7th) is that bf will branch out a bit. So far it has been that sozlet is happy to play with any number of kids and they're happy to play with her, but bf is all about sozlet, all the time.

This school took a video of the class one day, and then showed it to parents with commentary. Bf wasn't there the day it was filmed (she is kept out sick occasionally), but bfm was there when the video was shown, so the teacher just kept saying to bfm, "Whatever you see [sozlet] doing, [bf] would be doing, too."

Eh, we'll see. Update tomorrow, though I probably won't know much until a couple of days after that -- sozlet typically gets sick 2-3 days after bf exposure.

I'm gettin' negative, have to stop. It'll be fine.

How perfectly horrible (((( Sozobe )))) (((( Sozlet )))) (no worries, I define not-sick :wink:)

horribly worrying - I think the nursery informing you is the best bet, shame bfm is so unthinking and insensitive.

Would a direct request over a coffee with clear detailed background info help? she may think you are simply over protective and not understand properly your very real concerns and the short term nature of the request at the moment.

I gave the clear detailed background in the first email, including the short-term part -- frankly expected that she would say in reply to that, "Oh no, well I'll make sure that [bf] doesn't go to school sick then."

Nope.

At this point she's not lacking for information, so anything more direct becomes more confrontational, too. Which I'll certainly do if necessary.

Sozobe -- I frequently envy you for having a child like the Sozlet, but I so don't envy you for this particular situation. All the best for striking the right tone and resolving it!

Thanks, Thomas. Appreciate all the good wishes.

I predict it will come to this. Just do it with a smile.

Had a conversation with bfm, was interesting in a few ways. One was that she asked, "so is it painful when sozlet has ear infections?" I was like, yeah, horribly -- but beyond that she always gets fevers, and the fevers cause her to vomit, and the vomiting means that she gets dehydrated plus general weakness from not being able to keep anything down, and... Her eyes got bigger and she said, "some kids aren't even really affected" and I shrugged and said, "yeah, some. Unfortunately it's a huge mess when sozlet gets one. And that's not getting into if her eardrum bursts..." Her eyes got bigger yet.

So hopefully that will help impress upon her what exactly we're talking about, here.

Other thing that was interesting was that she said there had been some discussion with teachers about kindergarten readiness -- they said, well, bf is just kind of lost when sozlet isn't there. When sozlet's there she plays with her, but when she's not... so that was something they were specifically working on these last couple of weeks, getting bf a little more self-sufficient. I think that's good for everyone. Both of 'em were calmer upon seeing each other than I expected -- they smiled but didn't like dash into each others' arms.

Fingers crossed for no sickness this time!
Best wishes and thoughts. It makes no sense that a parent wouldn't consider the fact that your little one REALLY suffers because of this. I know all about the 105 fever and earaches, but thankfully nothing about a burst eardrum. That must be very hard for all of you. I hope it skips her this time!
Her artwork is amazing! My son, he'll be 4 years old next month, colors EVERYTHING very dark and then says whatever the original picture was is lost. I refuse to analyze that.
A quick kiddie story:
I had been watching the fashion channel all day before taking the christmas tree down earlier this month and the word sexy was mentioned several times to describe clothing. My son walked over to the tree and said, "Mom, I think this branch looks really sexy." I couldn't help but laugh and then I couldn't stop laughing. He was embarrassed and covered his eyes and kept telling me to stop laughing. I had to go hide so he couldn't see me laugh! Hopefully I didn't traumatize him forever, but it was sooooooooo funny!