Sicks and Pics

I don't have a lot of experience with sick kids. It's a blessing and a curse. A blessing that I can count the number of times my three year old has been sick on one hand. Three fingers to be exact. Baby 1 had a teeny tiny cough as a baby that even the doctor said "might" have been a cold, but it cleared up by the time I made it to his doctor's appointment. He got a fever and congestion once after meeting his cousins for the first time. And he got a stomach bug the day after his 3rd birthday. But that's it. No regular colds and ear infections that I was subjected to as a child, likely because I grew up with two siblings, regular school, and no pandemic that forced people to isolate and wear masks in many situations. I am extremely grateful that my son has not been sick often. But it also means that I have very little experience with sick kids and that my son has very little experience being sick. Thus it becomes a big, "What's going on? I don't like it!" situation for the toddler and a "How do I comfort you while also caring for a second child?" situation for me. The stomach bug situation was probably the worst since my toddler was terrified of the throwing up sensation, and even went to the hospital when we worried he was dehydrated. But now, a week after starting preschool, he came home with a runny nose that turned into an upper respiratory virus that turned into an ear infection, just like I used to get as a kid.

Oh, that's right. My son has started preschool.

That has been a transition in itself, of course. My firstborn is 3 years old and has never been alone with anyone who isn't family. The pandemic has kept us from interacting with too many kids his own age (not that we really know any). So once he got his first Covid-19 vaccine and life is trending toward a sort of normal, we knew it was time for him to get new experiences with new adults and kids his own age to help with social skills as well as just normal development and exciting new opportunities.

The first day of school was August 29, the day before his baby brother turned 8 months old. Baby brother got too big for his bassinet, which was gifted to his new baby cousin (coming soon October 3!). So there's been a lot of transitions in our household. The first day actually got delayed a week due to a Covid outbreak among staff, but I was grateful the school took the cases seriously, delaying the start date by a week, deep cleaning, and implementing mandatory masks for all adults for the first two weeks of classes. Before that we at least got to attend a "Parents Night" to learn about the school curriculum, and meet the teachers one on one. My son was a little nervous meeting his lead teacher, but instantly took the male assistant teacher, showing him that he knows the alphabet my playing with uppercase and lowercase magnetic letters. And thank the heavens--the school has Play-Doh! This actually really helped on the first day as his teacher said Play-Doh was his "grounding object" that day when he started to get upset at the fact that Mommy was gone. I loved the school already, caring so much about his emotional needs and I know all about grounding.

The first day was certainly an adventure. After meeting teachers, talking up how fun school was going to be, and reading Daniel Goes to School (a Daniel Tiger book) over and over again, we were as ready as we'd ever be. Hubby and I both took the day off work so we could be with him for the big event. We dressed him in play clothes but a shirt that had his name. We packed his backpack with an extra set of clothes (just in case), his trusty thermos, and several "diaper shorts" (training pants) into a rolling backpack gifted to him from his older cousins. We got to take our first "First Day of School" chalkboard photos outside our front door! We drove him down to the new school we had visited to meet the teachers and he'd said "It looks like the library!" We checked him in, learned the security process, and watched him excitedly jump from one letter to the next on the alphabet stickers leading down the hallway to his classroom. We met his teacher who kneeled down to his level to greet him. Then the teachers led him into the room and out the door to the playground while he followed obediently but a little confused. No tears from him (not the first day at least), but a lot from Hubby and I once we got in the car. That was it? I knew the teacher advocated for quick goodbyes to make the process easier on the kids, but I thought there would be a little more to it on the first day. I guess not. Hubby and I sat in silence on the drive to a restaurant for breakfast. We didn't get to eat out much alone, so this was kind of like a date. But I did start crying again when I thought about all the things our son would get to do that we wouldn't even know about (he's talking a lot but he doesn't understand or remember everything of course). I didn't know if he understood what just happened. I didn't know if he was missing us or scared. And also, he would (hopefully) be doing fun things like going down the playground slide and for the first time in my life I would be missing it. But this was the next step in his life. We can't stop growing up, and we ultimately knew that the teachers would take good care of him and he would be fine.

He did miss us, but the school keeps detachable pictures of every child's family on the wall (attached with Velcro) so he had something to hold onto when he missed his family (I LOVE that). There would be tears at drop off on day three and four. Some drop offs had no tears. Some had a few that stopped when a kind teacher led my son toward something fun to do. The absolute best day was actually when it was raining and the kids weren't on the playground at drop off. I took my toddler into the classroom and he ran toward a little girl who looked so excited to see him (he actually tried to kiss her, to which the teacher kindly said, "let's keep our germs to ourselves"). But they were both so happy to be playing together. My child has friends! Friends his own age for the first time! He can name half the kids in his class and will excitedly tell us that school was so much fun! He still has tough days three weeks into it (when he's feeling especially sensitive he doesn't want to leave Mommy or his teacher's side), but he always wants to go back. Even when he was sick he said he wanted to go to school and not the doctor, and cried looking at a picture of his teacher who he missed.

Thankfully, my toddler is on the mend, and my baby (who caught the runny nose right after him), is doing well, learning to sleep in a larger playpen and acting cheerful as ever as he crawls everywhere (quickly graduating from his army crawl on his 8-month birthday), pulls himself up to stand, and tries to eat everything. He loves almost every puree we give him, and bananas, and kiwis, and apples, and pancakes, and mangos, and chicken, and teething cookies, and puffs, and probably more I can't even remember. It helps in between nursing and pumped milk bottles since my supply has been getting lower and lower since the big start of preschool, probably due to the new schedule and a little bit of new stress. I mean, we have been dealing with a lot of emotions, changes, and seemingly endless runny noses.

On the plus side, I'm happy to have had lots of special photo opportunities, like my birthday, my birthday fall photoshoot present to myself, and my preschooler's first ever School Picture Day. The downside here is that he is very independent (when he wants to be) and so insists on picking his own clothes. Developmenttally, this is a great thing! But in practice, I can't help but be a little disappointed that he doesn't want to wear either of the button shirts I picked for him for Picture Day (we compromised on a soft shirt with just two buttons) and it's getting harder and harder to convince him to wear matching outfits with his brother (matching outfits with me are long gone).

But I will say that this growing up, while sad at times, comes with a lot of perks. My toddler can communicate his needs better than ever, but also there's fewer things we need to carry in the "diaper" bag, he's interested in more things that we can join in with him on, and he even...wait for it...pees in the toilet!

That's right, another big transition happening is potty training! We've worked very hard not to force it, but just occasionally offered the potty often just in case. The best piece of advice I've received on potty training actually worked. In one word: wait. He will let you know when he's ready. And sure enough, my 3-year-old just randomly started telling us when he has to pee and that he wanted to pee on the toddler seat that goes on top of the big potty. We started putting him in those "diaper shorts" and guess what? We wakes up dry! He comes home from school dry! (Though we do hope to get him comfortable actually using the little potties at school instead of holding it in). We're thinking about transitioning to an actual underwear soon (pooping, however, will be another story).

So there's a lot going on in the world of motherhood right now. But among all the transitions and illness and growing there's a lot of fun. And a lot to look forward to. I mean, fall is my favorite season and all the upcoming holidays make me excited as baby will be celebrating his first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and first birthday! And my toddler is old enough to start to understand these holidays better and participate in them both in out of school. It's new territory for me that I can't wait to experince.