Pearls of Wisdom

Each week JBM has a list of about 25 words that he needs to learn, spell and be able to write for a test on Friday morning. Each night he does spelling pages in his book and in the morning we have an oral quizz in the car. It is fun to be passing down the pneumonics I used when I was in school to remember how to spell certain words. His favorite so far is how I remembered to spell Connecticut.....our lovely home state....."you 'Connect' 'I' 'cut.' When doing writing assignments, it is fun to hear JBM spelling things out in his head (outloud of course).

Guess we parents do have some gems to pass on to our children.

Can you also conclude who does not listen to me at home? In reality, the answer is NO ONE...except the dog and that is questionable at best since she is 12 and hard of hearing :(

Vision and Hearing Screening

We have begun vision and hearing screening in between sending kids home with high fevers and tracking ILIs. This is by far our favorite time of the year. So far, I have had to brush off my French skills so that we could test a french speaking family and we have been dealing with a myriad of kindergarteners who twist their bodies in unnatural ways to show us which way the hands are pointing on the vision chart (many of them do not know the ABCs yet). Yesterday, TSAnnie had a five year old giving her the finger (thankfully, he had no clue what he was doing but I thought my insides were going to burst)!

TSAnnie and I are on opposite sides of the room as the testing takes place and the glances that travel back and forth are beyond funny. Once the classes are done, we take the time to review and giggle. This is, by far, the most entertaining time of the year. Love to tell teachers that their classes all passed with flying colors. It confirms for them that there are those students that simply choose to not listen!

Alas, I feel that way at home every day........

It is here.....

Staying with the theme of yesterday's blog....we are the fortunate recipients of the first confirmed case of H1N1 in our lovely community. Thank goodness for parents who are aware of their children's health and take them to the doctor even if the symptoms do not seem severe. No letters go out to the class. No communication goes out to the school. A weekly update is provided by the superintendent and a count is being kept on the BOE web site. Let's hope this is not the start of something big.....oh and did I mention that the affect student is in JBM's class! GAH!

On the front lines.....

H1N1 is in the news more and more each day. I was pleasantly surpirsed this weekend to hear a story on our local news station about one state that is depending upon school nurses to keep the local and state governments informed about absences from school for "flu like" illnesses and confirmed cases of H1N1. Finally some recognition!

On the other hand, the CDC has decided that school nurses are NOT part of the health care workers who should be getting the H1N1 vaccine. Imagine, we spend our whole day caring for students of all ages with "flu like" symptoms but are not considered high risk for getting the actual disease? What floors me even more is that doctors and nurses who work in pediatric practices (I do that too) are not consdered high risk health care workers either! UGH......or as MPM would say GAH.....

Coming down off my soap box now....but one more thing, if we are being counted on to keep track of cases, are not immunized and get H1N1, who will be tracking things when we are home sick?

A new season and a new coach

Those of you who know my family well have either tailgated with us or are bored to tears with listening to my family talk about Army Football..... We have shared in or most recently owned season tickets to USMA Army Football. One of the best places in the world to enjoy the autumn weather and a bit of militray tradition. Something that Flyboy and JBM live for.......helicopters, paratroopers, pomp, circumstance and, oh yeah, some football.

This year the team has several new things....a new coach, re-deployed players, and a new helicopter (no it is not a Balckhawk much to my boys dismay). And for the first time since 1996, they have a winning record and are fun to watch! Having a 6 foot 10 inch wide reciever does help when you do not have much of a passing game.

Maybe a bowl game is in our future this year? GO ARMY and maybe they will actually BEAT NAVY!

Lice anyone?

So the school year is in full swing and we received notice of our first cases of unwanted visitors this week......head lice. It is always so much fun to be picking through a child's hair and this search often includes siblings, parents and teachers as well. Always glad to help.....but what I do not understand is why some parents feel it is important to know who the child in a class is with the head lice! Yes, I know it is a pain to have to check your child every day for two weeks (that is why JBM is buzzed!) but it is a privacy issue and I would not want any child or parent to have to deal with the social implications.

So I ask those parents out there who may get a notice about lice to take the notice and treat it seriously...don't beat up on a teacher or the school nurse to try and find out who has lice. It does not matter! Just make sure your child doesn't. It is not rocket science.

I had lice in elementary school and my hair was down to my waist at the time. It was not fun for me or my Mom but we had plenty of girl time. Oh and by the way, my hair was cut short at the time and has not been below my shoulders since!

We're Back

So today is the first day of a new school year and this is the first moment I have had to even reflect on it. What does this year promise to bring our way? If today is any indication, it could be very interesting..... So far today, we have a few students out with "flu like symptoms," the lunch of a child with severe food allergies disappeared so we had to find them something safe to eat, we have news students on daily "vitamins" who really need them and waiting for parents to come and administer almost put me over the edge and we are drowning in the piles of paper that come with the beginning of the school year. I have grown to really dislike the color pink. All I have to say is...."is it June yet?"