Ambiguity

Slush
Unpredictable, wet
Preschool is closed
Campus open, classes on
Imminent

Snow
Wet, slippery
Going home slowly
Classes met, others canceled
Intensifying

Storm
White, heavy
Spouse to conference
Flight still on time
Weird

A Change of Plans

Tuesday: Dalton gets sent home early from Daycare with a fever. Dr. H. picks up both kids and comes home early.

Wednesday: Dalton stays home with me. He seems better but tired. I get some stuff done - cleaning my home office which has been collecting junk and toys since Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I feel sick too, so I am not moving very fast.

Wednesday night: Curie has a fever, which somehow went undetected at daycare.

Thursday: Curie wakes up with a horrible cough and stays home with me. We go into my office in the afternoon because I had to check in on things for Friday, when we are interviewing a candidate for a tenure-track position. I discover the Nick Jr website has full length Dora episodes on line. Curie happily sits at a computer in the lab's alcove while I clean the lab. Her cough is infrequent, but sounds awful. The fever from the evening before seems to have broken.

Thursday night: Uneventful until the midnight when Curie begins to cough on and off, waking up Dalton and Dr. H. every half hour or so. I'm a sounder sleeper than Dr. H. Eventually, though, she wakes me up too and I convince her to sleep semi-upright on a few pillows. We finally all get a few hours of sleep.

Friday: Kids wake up happy. A quick hand check of foreheads results in a maybe/maybe not diagnosis on the fever end. Maybe/maybe not via the hand check usually means no via thermometer, so I decide not to tempt fate and investigate further. Kids go to daycare with Dr. H., I go to campus to participate fully in the interview and dinner.

Friday night: Dr. H reports that Dalton slept for 3.5 hours at daycare and remained listless afterwards. They called him to pick up the kids a little early. He begins to feel awful himself. Kids are restless, develop fevers. Curie can't stop coughing. Dalton is really uncomfortable and hot. Cough medicine for one, ibuprofen for the other.

Saturday: Kids continue to have fevers. General repeat of previous night, only now Dr. H. feels even worse.

Sunday: Curie wakes up on the upswing, but still tired. Dr. H. can't breathe, can't really think and has two nosebleeds. Dalton has three nosebleeds and his fever hasn't gone away, but he does start eating again, so we are optimistic. He has trouble sleeping, announces "My ear hurts!" Okay, this sucks, but it explains a lot. Dr. H. can't sleep at all.

Monday early morning: We get up, decide Curie is able to go to daycare. She wants to stay home or go to work with me because she thinks then she will get to watch Dora. I call the pediatrician. Yes, 1:30 is their earliest appointment. I quickly run the cat with the treated UTI to the vet for a post-treatment urine sample and return home. Dr. H. leaves with Curie.

Monday mid morning: Dalton's ear hurts. A lot. I give him ibuprofen. After that kicks in we do a floor puzzle together then he goes off to play on his own. I decide to clean and organize the kitchen, because everything else I have to do I can't do with a child interrupting me every three minutes. In cleaning the kitchen, I discover a plastic bubble sheet of pills and determine that the cat was supposed to have two weeks of antibiotics, not one. I call the vet.

Monday afternoon: Dalton and I head out to the pediatrician. Yes, ear infection, antibiotics. We drop the script off at the drive through pharmacy next to Trader Joe's. We go shopping until the prescription is ready. We start to drive home. Crap! Forgot the cat. Back to the vet to pick her up. Graciously, they don't charge for the urine draw (already done by the time I called, bummer) or make me feel bad about being an idiot. Back home, Dalton takes his antibiotics and falls asleep on the couch.

Monday evening: Dr. H. finds NyQuil that expired in 2000. He decides to rummage further and finds some that didn't expire until 2006. He finally gets a decent night's sleep. The kids do too.

Tuesday morning: Smiles! Laughter! Running! Dr. H and I determine it is easier to get the kids dressed when they are sick. I get the leaking tire on my car fixed (nail) then finally get into the office around noon.

The problem? Call me crazy, but I was kind of planning on using this past week to prepare classes for the spring term. We start Monday. I still have three days of daycare this week. No problem.

Peace of Mind

We returned from our sabbaticals in June and our kids quickly integrated back in to their old daycare, situated on Dr. H.'s campus. We are very happy with the place, mainly because the kids seem to enjoy it so much. Though they enjoy the setting in different ways.

Curie has many friends and runs around with them all day long, participating in a lot of cooperative play. Dalton, on the other hand, enjoys playing by himself and figuring things out. He doesn't tend to seek out other children (except for Curie on occasion) and often simply ignores them when they are close by. I've spoken about this before, when the kids were in daycare in Sabbatical Town. (Our sabbatical daycare provider found this behavior odd and somewhat troubling. I attributed it to having two geeky parents.)

Having moved into the preschool room in our old daycare resulted in a new wave of people interacting with both our children, and thus, a fresh perspective. The preschool teachers, it turns out, do not think Dalton has any problematic social issues - mainly because he interacts fine with adults, participates in some activities, and interacts with other children sometimes. The believe (like me) that he is just a kid who is fine being on his own. However, they do think it would not be a bad idea to encourage him to play with his peers on occasion.

They shared with us one of their strategies for encouraging him. During their twice daily outside times, Dalton normally grabs a bike-like toy and rides it around by himself, ignoring other children. Now, a few times a week, they pull the bikes in before letting the kids out. Why? So my son will be encouraged to play with other kids on the playground once in a while. And it works, on those days he does play with other children, without any additional prompting.

But did you catch that? Our daycare rearranges activities just because they think it might be be a good idea for one of the children in the (largish) group.

I love that place.

Um, Thanks but No Thanks

The other day, Dr. H was taking the kids to their preschool on his campus. Dalton was being slow in opening and going through the door, as he often is. He loves doors! He is all about the doors. In, out, in, open, close, open, out, in, close - anyway you get the idea. Dr. H is attempting to hurry him along when another parent comes in and tries to help also.

She says to our son, in a dramatic voice: "You need to go in fast because the bad man is coming!"

What. The. Hell. ?!?

Dr. H was rendered speechless. Fortunately, having never heard such a thing before, Dalton seemed totally oblivious.

Tales from Preschool II

A conversation relayed to us by the preschool teacher:

Random Child #1: I'm Spiderman!

Random Child #2: I'm Superman!

Curie: I'm a bug!

My fears about the introduction of an episode of Dora on Saturdays have been alleviated.

Tales from Preschool

The preschool served nachos today. None of the kids ate the taco meat. Apparently, one child announced the meat looked like worms, and that as they say, was that.