Preschool & Pox

We interrupt this broadcast of historical events to bring you some more current ones. While I still have lots to catch up on, more from our trip to Montana (a hike to a waterfall! and I love waterfalls perhaps more than sunsets, so guess how many pictures I took!), our visit to Milwaukee, and now Scott's parents' visit here. But while they are still relevant, some activity from the last 24 hours:

Zach had his first day of preschool yesterday! While he has been doing various school-type things, such as our ECFE classes and his outings to the Mom's Day Away program, this is truly the beginning of "real" school for him. He will go Tuesday & Thursday mornings to the program at Salem Lutheran church. He is in a class of 18... only 4 of which are boys! There is one teacher and one teacher's aide, both moms of young kids and seemingly great with preschool-age kids. I had to laugh when Zach referred to Mrs. Bryant, the aide, as "the one whose hair comes out in back." Interpretation: both times he's seen her, she's had her hair in a low ponytail. :)

It was fun to drop him off yesterday and witness just how mature he's gotten. He had absolutely no anxiety about me leaving, was asking the teachers (and me) all sorts of questions, and could not wait to dig into all the new toys and activities. When the teacher asked the kids to line up at the door to head to chapel, you could see the spectrum of the kids' readiness for this type of organized instruction. Zach was second in line, and happily marched down the hall, while many of the other kids had to be herded by their parents first to get in line and then to follow the line down the hall. Seems like such a simple thing, but then again, we adults have been doing it our whole lives!

And when Scott's parents and I picked Zach up, he was full of stories. His favorite was singing songs, particularly an activity they did that involved "the ants go marching." I'm really looking forward to more stories as he gets to know both the kids and the teachers better.

On the Charlie front, we had some excitement with him yesterday too. Charlie is normally an extremely content baby, so when he was crying or whimpering any time he was awake, and sleeping only in someone's arms, and restlessly at that, we knew something was up. His head was extremely hot, and suddenly those little dots on his body seemed like more than a rash caused by some sort of skin irritation. His temp was 102.4, so I called the doctor and was told to bring him in, since fever + rash = not good. After waiting too long (along with a boy who was apparently kicked too hard in a certain sensitive part of his anatomy at karate practice), the doctor ended up taking some blood - from his heel, a horrid process - to check his white blood count. Diagnosis: chicken pox!!!

The doctor at urgent care instructed me to return the following morning for a follow-up with Charlie's regular doctor, since his fever was higher than is typically seen with chicken pox (it was 102.7 at the dr office). But first she scared me to death regarding the contagiousness (is that a word?) of the pox, and informed me Charlie would probably have to stay in the house for up to 2 weeks. Yikes!

When Charlie woke up this morning the fever was completely gone, and he was acting like his normal self again (we got smiles!). The spots also seemed to have faded a bit, and definitely hadn't become raised or gotten larger. So long story short, when I took Charlie in to see his regular pediatrician, the new diagnosis was roseola, a common virus with small children, much less scary, and much less contagious. As long as the fever doesn't come back, he's good. Whew. I feel like we dodged quite the bullet with this one... I can't wait until Charlie turns 1 so he can get the chicken pox vaccine!

PS... I also learned Charlie now weighs 13 lbs 15 oz. And while he may look totally bald in those pictures, he does have some hair coming in. Too early/thin/short to tell what color it is though.