We’ve had a lot happening over the past two-and-a-half weeks. We spent Auckland Anniversary weekend (Sat 24th to Mon 26th January) at a gorgeous west-coast beach called Raglan. Raglan held their first Wine & Food Market on the Sunday. It was excellent…we bought loads of yummy food (danishes, basil pesto, pumpkin hummus, bread, strawberries etc) to take back to the beach for lunch. It was very busy and very hot at the market so we were in and out of there within about 25 minutes. As we were leaving we bumped into our lovely friends, Karin and Martin and their daughter, Emily (she is the same age as Max). We told them where we were going to be on the beach and they managed to find us so we had a great catch-up with them, and Lukas, Max and Emily had heaps of fun.
Monday 2nd February was Max’s first day at school. I’d been slowly winding myself up about it over the previous week for the obvious reasons (new environment, unfamiliar children and teacher, longer hours than at kindy etc etc) but it wasn’t until I’d spoken to my brother, Rob, about how he felt when his boys started school that I felt reassured and excited, rather than anxious and nervous. BBD and I had many conversations with Max over the Christmas holidays about turning five and being a big school boy so Max was more than ready when 7am Monday morning rolled around. He ceremoniously put on his school uniform, his hat and his bag, and posed for this photo.
Max and I were at the school gate at 8.30am and I slowed my walk thinking Max’s nerves would surface and we’d be halted by a not-to-unfamiliar pleading of, “I don’t want to go in there”. But he kept walking ever more excited about what lay ahead. We followed the dozen or so other parents carrying their white boxes of new-entrant school books in one hand and shepherding bright-faced new-entrants with the other. At the entrance to the hallway of the four new-entrant classrooms we were greeted by a lovely lady who introduced herself to Max and asked him what room number he was in. She took us down the hall to Room 3 and handed us over to Miss Cunningham, Max’s lovely, friendly, smiley new teacher. I knew Max would be fine when he spied a very confident wee man playing on a computer who willingly explained what he was doing and generously asked Max if he would like to have a turn. I stayed for a further twenty or so minutes until Max was completely settled in. Walking back to the ute I felt quite chuffed with myself for not bawling my way through the morning but, more importantly, I felt really proud to be Max’s mum. I went along to the school assembly later on that morning and was moved to tears by the principal’s ‘Welcome to TAPS’ speech. Max ran over to me at the end of the assembly but was unfazed at having to immediately rejoin his class to head back to the classroom. The rest of the school week has gone by without a hitch. The only thing Max has said is that he misses his old kindy and his old friends.An up-date on his monetary reward system…this is Max’s Reward Chart:
At the end of each day (bedtime) we go through the ‘I Will…’ list and for each thing done successfully Max receives two gold coins. The next day Max can use the coins he’s collected to ‘buy’ the things in ‘My Treats for Good Behaviour are…’ list. For the first week Max was spending his bounty as quickly as he was earning it and doing things such as cleaning up toys, ‘folding’ washing, ‘helping’ with dinner etc to earn money to play Playstation or watch TV because he didn’t have enough. I think it’s working really well and there’s only been a couple of occasions where he’s said, “I don’t want any money anyway”, but the next day he’s quickly realized his mistake when he hasn’t had enough money in the coffers to watch Speed Racers.
My poor poor baby Lukas has been really unwell for the past week with tonsillitis. He started taking amoxicillin on Friday but hadn’t improved at all by Sunday, and particularly concerning was that his temperature was getting up to 40.1 so we took him to Anglesea Clinic where they changed his antibiotic to E-mycin 400. By Wednesday he had developed a rash and diarrhea, which I later discovered was a reaction to the E-mycin. I couldn’t get an appointment with my GP until later in the day so I took him to Anglesea Clinic again. They referred him to Waikato Hospital because they didn’t think his tonsils were looking bad enough to warrant such high temperatures and they wanted to check for another source of infection, mainly urinary. By the time he waited 45 minutes in the waiting room, 20 minutes in the doctor’s room, got a stick shoved down his throat, a thermometer and then an otoscope in his ear, been undressed and redressed at Anglesea, then put into a vehicle with an internal temperature of 40oC to go to Waikato Hospital, Lukas was beside himself. Fortunately we were able to go straight through to the children’s department because of the referral from Anglesea Clinic. When the doctor finished examining Lukas (repeat as per above), Lukas curled up on me and went to sleep. About 20 minutes later, and while Lukas slept, they put a urine bag on him, and cream on the back of his hands to numb them for when they needed to take blood samples. Fortunately he peed after about 10 minutes and after an hour they were able to rule out a urinary infection. He was given some paracetamol and within 40 minutes he was up and about and playing hiding games with the staff at the front desk. They decided not to do blood tests and soon after that they gave us the all-clear to go home.
Although it seemed a perfectly useless exercise, I did garner some excellent information regarding high temperatures, which I’ve always been terrified of as I’ve had friends relate horrifying stories of their young child having a febrile seizure. So, a high temperature is your body fighting an infection…this is a good thing. Only 1% of children will suffer a febrile seizure and most often in cases where the child’s temp has gone from the normal range to 40o in about half-an-hour without displaying prior illness. If, like Lukas, your child has tonsillitis and his temp goes into the 40’s it is ok to sponge with tepid water and treat with paracetamol while awake AND if said child is sleeping and can be roused (is not limp and floppy) then let child sleep…do not wake up and force tired child to endure temp taking, sponging, and walks in cool air.
As of today Lukas is happy and some-what recovered. He still has a bit of a viral skin rash but is eating normally and sleeping well (hellaluyah).
Friday was a public holiday to celebrate Waitangi Day. We had planned to go away but because Lukas was unwell we decided to stay at home. We had friends round for a BBQ on Friday afternoon. On Saturday Johnny took the boys to Hamilton Gardens while I went shopping for some clothes in preparation for interviews and a new job that I hope to get now that Max has started school and Lukas is at daycare. Sunday and it is hot hot hot…we have avoided being outside. I would love to have gone to Raglan or Kawhia but dang it is too hot. It is 7.15pm and cool enough that the boys can burn off a bit of energy outside before bedtime.
