As the end of the school year draws near, I am looking forward to one thing in particular: I expect the number of exposure notices to drop significantly. We all know about the lice notices, it seemed like I was receiving one (or causing one to be received by others) every few days for months. But I didn't tell you about the others that have been regularly rolling in: pink eye (which she got), scabies (which she didn't), strep throat, hand, foot and mouth disease (isn't that for farm animals?), impetigo and scarlett fever. Just so you know how grossly misinformed I am, I thought scarlett fever was a serious disease. It's not. It seems that I'm confusing the colors of my fevers.
When Cassandre was little I shrugged off these notices. She almost never got sick and over time I just chalked them up to cya on the part of the school. Recently, however, I've developed a fear of the little white notes and the maladies they represent. Our battles with lice (won, I think, she said knocking on wood) and encounter with pink eye, and having met the classmate with scarlett (not yellow) fever, have resulted in me not being able to shake the warnings off the way I could before.
I expect the number of notices to drop, but not to stop. You see, I'm sending them to french camp, at the french school and the same rug rats they hang out with today are the ones they'll be running around with tomorrow. Except that since it's "camp" (and I don't mean that the way the Nazis did even though it is at school and some of you might not think that is very camp like...) anyway, I was saying that since it's camp she'll also get exposed (ha ha) to a whole new set of mystery dates. Kids who come in for two weeks and never come back.
It seems that not everyone needs day care the way I do and many parents actually keep their kids home during the summer. Or send them to real camp, or even sleep-away camp. I loved sleep-away camp. It was my first experience getting away from home and tasting independence. Of course I was horribly shy and it took me practically the whole summer to warm up to people (yes, I was that girl, the one you think is a total bitch until you realize she's just shy) but sleep-away camp is where I learned to ride a minibike, flirt with boys and steer a canoe - all very valuable life skills.
But I digress.
My girls are too young for sleep-away camp and they need to keep up with their French language skills over the summer so they don't fall behind. Plus, french camp is fun. No really. It's just like regular day camp but in another language, full of games, field trips, pools and running around. I wish I could go.
Really I wish I could go to sleep-away camp.
I got another notice today, this one for Roseola Infantum: here is what it said, italics are all mine.
What are the symptoms? Fever (often high) and a red, raised rash.
How is it spread? Direct contact with the mucous or saliva from the nose or throat of an infected person. And this is how you know we're dealing with kids. No matter how much I love you, if you are over five feet tall there is just no freaking way I am coming into contact with your sickly mucous membranes.
When do symptoms start? 5 to 15 days after exposure to the virus. Good, because there's nothing I enjoy more than waiting for fever and a red, raised rash.
Need to keep the child home? No. Unless child is unable to participate in activies. Hello ground control, are you kidding me? I mean isn't that why you're sending this freaking notice home to me in the first place? Because some kid got sick and got dropped at school anyway?
Return to school/childcare? Children may return to school/childcare after fever disappears. Or when you have given them so much motrin that no one can tell that they're sick anymore.Oh right, like you've never done that.
Remember when I said that the ESPN crew took some footage of Xav and me fly fishing in Chile? Look! We made the promo! Best part is that we don't talk. ;-)
Can I have one?
When I was pregnant and dreaming of my girl I made little lists in my head of the things I wanted her to inherit from me, along with the things I hoped she wouldn't get.
The list of "good" things was not very long but I did hope she would get my green eyes. These eyes are also my mother's eyes and my sister's eyes and I liked the idea of passing them on. I like that our eye color is so changeable. Sometimes they're blue, other times bright green - especially if we've been crying.
Of course genetics don't listen to wishes and my girl's eyes came out the most beautiful shade of brown, just like her father's.
One thing on my list not to pass along was my extreme reaction to physical trauma - especially if it involves blood. I've had this problem all of my life and it is out of character with the rest of my take-no prisoners personality. Despite lots of internal pep talks, the net result of many minor to moderate injuries has been me fainting. One time a nurse was taking my blood and not only did I pass out, but as a bonus I went into convulsions.
That is not to say that I'm not good in an emergency, I am. During the time of the emergency, when every thing/one is chaotic and panicking, I shine. If no one is taking charge, I take charge. If someone has taken charge I ask them for orders or start taking on jobs. I'm good this way. If you need a ride to the hospital, or a tourniquet, ask me.
The problem comes after the adrenaline has worn off. Once the emergency is over, when everyone is safe and sound, the realization of what I have just seen or done kicks in and I pass out.
Once Xav decided to prune our palm tree with a machete. Before I knew it, he'd put a nine inch palm frond through his finger next to the bone. I wrapped up his hand, drove him to the hospital and took care of everything. I waited until he was admitted and in good hands. I sat on the floor under his gurney listening to the scrape, scrape scrape of scalpel against bone.
And then the bees came.
The bees are my early warning system that I am going away for a while. They start faintly in the background and as they get louder my vision turns to tunnel and before you know it, I'm out. I know the symptoms well enough now to sit down ahead of time, but by the time I can hear the bees I've usually lost the ability to speak. Sometimes I can whisper something lame like "I'm going to..." but not always.
This is not a quality I wanted to pass to my kids.
The other day Cassandre and Juju were rough housing (as usual) when Juju played too hard (as usual) and jumped up and hit her really hard head under Cassandre's chin. Bam! Cassandre bit her tongue and started crying (as usual).
She came into my room and at first I didn't take her seriously. Crying is a tactic of hers to both get attention for herself and to get her sister into trouble and I've learned to take her tears with a grain (or a handful) of salt.
I advised her to calm down, to take a drink of water and to show me her injury. Her tongue was bleeding and there was a visible booboo, but she wasn't able to spit enough blood (despite lots of trying) to make me worry. I informed her with a smile that the tongue heals faster than any other part of the body and that by tomorrow she'll hardly notice a thing.
She looked at herself in the mirror and stuck her tongue out to examine her injury. The next thing I knew she had dropped my ceramic cup into the sink with a loud clang. I started to scold her for being careless when I realized that the rest of her body was crumbling in front of me.
I caught her just before she hit the sink.
I called Xav for help and together we carried her back to our bed. We raised her feet on pillows and put a cool cloth on her forehead. She started mumbling like she was waking up and slowly came to. We made her stay on the bed for a few more minutes but soon she was able to get up and walk around. She was hungry and wanted breakfast. By the time we were finished eating she was completely back to normal so we got in the car and I drove her to school.
On the ride to school I asked her what she felt/saw/heard as she was passing out and she told me about hearing the buzzing.
The bees came for her too.
