Told you so

I believe I have previously stated that all the crazy stuff seems to go down when Dan is gone. Well, let me just say: I told you so.

This past Monday Cole started his new school (finally!). It's about 15 minutes or so away, but it was his behavior that made the choice for us. Cole and I toured a few schools in the past three weeks, and this was the only one he seemed to like. So much so that when our tour was over, he plopped himself down on the staircase, crossed his arms, and refused to leave. Then he looked up at the director and asked, "Do you have a job for her (motioning to me)?" He knew that if I had a job, I would have to leave him there. At least, that's how it's always worked in his world: you go to school so Mommy and Daddy can go to work.

Of course, the director thought it was quite funny, but didn't understand his reasoning behind it.

She then had to leave us alone for a few minutes as I patiently explained to Cole that he had to either walk out of there on his own two feet, or I would throw him over my shoulder and carry him out. Gratefully, he chose the former.

Cole talked about that school for the next two weeks. He continually asked when he would get to go back, why I wasn't taking him to school, Jack and Katie get to go to school, blah blah blah!!

After more school tours, talking to other moms, and a lot of discussion between us, we signed him up for the school - let's just call it.....The Benton School. Kind of pooty, huh?

So. Monday morning was his first day. The school had Open House last Saturday, so we made a big deal of the whole family touring Cole's new school, let him lead us around, try out a computer games, find his cubby, etc.

Monday morning...I am up bright and early, but it's the first day I've gotten the four of us all ready to leave at the same time. It's been too long apparently, because it took me over two hours. TWO HOURS, PEOPLE!! Even I don't know what I was doing all that time. I do know I wasn't sitting on the couch eating Dove chocolates watching "Law & Order." BUT I digress.

Jack and Katie head to the bus stop, and Cole and I are headed out of the door a few minutes later. I'm really talking up his first day, what fun he's going to have, and all the friends he is going to make. We aren't even halfway there, and the elementary school calls. It's the school nurse (never a good sign).

"Mrs. Callaway, this is so-and-so, the school nurse? And I have Jack here, he's got hives all over him."

"Huh? What?"

"HIVES. Jack has HIVES all over his body."

"Well, he had some bug bites from this weekend, so -"

"Nooo, Mrs. Callaway, these are NOT bug bites. Do you want me to give him some Benadryl?"

"Uh, yeah - yes, please. I will come pick him up, but I'm all the way over across the county taking my other son to his school, so it will be a while before I can get there."

"Alright, he'll be in the nurses' office."

(Really? Liiiiiike where else would he be?)

After much hub-bub, promises and threats, I manage to peel Cole off of my right thigh and coax him into his room, and am finally on my way to pick up Jack. It's one full hour after I got the nurse's call that I arrive to pick him up. As I have been admonished many times by school personnel that "there are rules here," and "we probably do things differently," I know to stop by the school office to sign him out. Three days later, after I've been re-educated about the signing out process and why this particular absence won't be counted against him because it's a "nurse's exclusion," and the next day there's no need for me to send a note for Jack to deliver to the office staff because the nurse called me and it's not a parent-note-sick day or a doctor's-note day or a vacation day or a pigs-were-flying day since-he-was-sick-since-the-nurse-called-me-to-come-get-him-I-can-just-sign-my-name-right-here-in-this-blank-and-the-date-here-and-the-time-here-and-then-his-name-jack-callaway-right-here-and -ALRIGHT I GET IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I-HAVE-A-DOCTORATE-IN-LAW-I-BET-I-CAN-FIGURE-THIS-OUT!!!!!

I'm just exhausted. My beautiful, lonesome morning is quickly going down the toilet.

Fiiiiiiinallllly I am allowed to go around the corner to the nurses' office where I find Jack and his hives waiting on me. Much to my dismay and surprise, there are hives all over his belly, and I can see where some on his face were but are now fading. There are some on his arms, and back as well.

It's not hard to read the nurse's face and know she is disgusted with this ignorant hayseed of a mother standing before her who would send her child to school with visible hives all over this body. I feel compelled to explain. I said that "this most definitely happened after he walked out of my door this morning, and under no circumstances would I have sent him to school this way. And furthermore, he DID have some bug bites from last weekend, that he fell asleep on a pallet watching movies Friday night (as he has done thousands of times), and woke up Saturday morning with THREE or FOUR bites that we thought were from a spider or but that got into the blankets, but then we went to an old plantation Saturday where he rolled around on some hay bales and had a short sleeve shirt on, but then his forearms broke out that night, so we thought it was skin irritation from hay and didn't really panic! ANNNND this morning he looked FINE."

Whew! (See why I'm exhausted??)

[blank look from the nurse]

"Well. Thank you, and I'm going to take him home now."

"Yes. This looks much better since I gave him the Benadryl. It was much, much worse, swollen here [raising his shirt], and here [touching his jawline], and all over his arms [taking both Jack's arms by the wrists and lifting them in the air as if for extra emphasis].

We leave, and I set him up with movies and popcorn while I attempt to get some work done Three hours later I have to pick up Cole. Jack's arms and belly and back and jawline look great. You can barely tell he had hives a few hours ago. So I take the boys with me to get the oil changed on the Suburban. I go to a popular national chain, one we'll call EnergyRoom Boys. They advertise the "29 minute oil change." That's about 27 minutes longer than Cole can usually wait, but they have a small waiting area with some toys, and I have the ipad, and I've got 8,500 miles on the Suburban without ever having had an oil change.

For the first 35 minutes we occupy ourselves by walking across the tundra- er, I mean, parking lot (it's about 40 degrees with what seems to be a windchill factor of 12 degrees and winds around 189 mph), and picking up a few things at a craft store. We get back to the waiting room, and the boys are entertained with the ipad and the toys, so I don't immediately go pester the mechanics. However, when I find Cole tracing his new craft item on the concrete floor with black markers, I wait at the service desk until a mechanic-person meanders that way, and tell him that if my vehicle isn't ready in about two minutes, I am going to turn my five-year-old loose in the shop.

Rude, you say? What.Ev.Er. It was one hour and 20 minutes over the advertised "29 minute oil change." And guess what? LESS THAN two minutes later, a mechanic announces my vehicle is ready!! As I am paying, Jack comes up to me with outstretched arms:

"MOM! Look!"

They're baaaaa-aackk.

It's 3:00, and I spend the next two or three minutes weighing my options and navigating the arctic winds to get to the vehicle, and decide that I now have to go to the doctor. I call and gratefully the receptionist says there is a spot open in 30 minutes, can I make it? Barely, I say, but we're on our way!

We make it just in time, again negotiating Icelandic-like winds to get in the doors, and now Jack and I are having our third or fourth, or maybe sixth, I'm not sure, conversation of the last two days about how you cannot keep wearing short sleeve shirts with a sleeveless jacket (I mean, what's up with a sleeveless jacket anyway? It's one of those puffy vests I see teenagers and children wearing and so of course, I caved and got Jack one, not thinking he would perpetuate the stupidity of a sleeveless coat/jacket by wearing short sleeves, but he has to learn consequences, so sometimes I just don't fight it!). We're still having this "discussion," while I am checking him in and paying my copay. I swear it took Cole less than 15 seconds after arriving in that room to start deflowering the nearest potted plant. He manages to de-flower, de-plume, and de-stroy most of the plant before I can grab his wrist and wrangle some huge green leaves away. Unfortunately, most of the green leaves are ON THE FLOOR amid dirt that surely came out of the same pot.

The only thing I know to do is to put the soon-to-be dead leaves back in the pot, and shove the dirt behind the pot and behind a chair leg. It's better than just leaving it there, right? The man standing in line behind me thankfully laughs, and says kindly, "It's ok, I've been there."

I manage a grin, and mutter a thanks. Then I look for a large blunt instrument to strike myself with. Not finding one, I have to sit there with the little monkey until Jack's name is called. I paid $15 for the doctor to tell me he's having an allergic reaction to - get ready - "SOMETHING." He writes a script for a steroid, which he has to take for seven days, as well as OTC Zyrtec. If at the end of those seven days it's not better, he will send us to an allergist for allergy testing. I am not sure he meant to say it out loud, but then he half-whispered "And good luck with finding out THOSE results!"

In all fairness, we love our doctor. He is great. The man can only work with what we give him. And I had to go to the doctor so I can tell the gestapo the next day he's been seen by the appropriate, licensed medical personnel. Further, I did want him to give Jack something that would bring relief.

So, in the end, it's just another day of me just livin' the dream. All was fairly calm by the time Dan arrived home around midnight Tuesday. I just wanted to make sure you knew, though, that I TOLD YOU SO!