This weekend we went to a playground that was surrounded on 3 sides by a big wooded area. Daniel and Julian disappeared down a trail and into the woods before I could stop them after I’d heard a couple people talking about the chiggers in that area. The next morning, Monday, Julian woke up with red bumps on his entire pelvic area…and I mean entire.

I hated having to send Julian to school in such discomfort. I slathered him up in Aveeno Anti-Itch cream and brought him into school to find the nurse’s office. I asked her if she would apply it to him and she asked Julian what he would prefer. He seemed embarrassed by that idea and said he’d do it himself. When I picked him up that day he said he’d gone to the clinic 5 times, and was miserable during Kids Club because the cream was left in the office.

Same routine on Tuesday, but when I picked him up after school, he was anxious to show me his penis, telling me it was purple. I told him to wait til we got home, because he was undoing his pants in the van. And Instead of strapping him into his seat, I let him sit there freely. Luckily, we live a couple blocks from the school, and the roads we take are not major.

When we got home, sure enough, the boy’s scrotum (sorry… there’s not a cuter word ) was all bruised and purply, I think from him scratching on top of his pants, since he’s not sticking his hand down there for a nails-to-skin scratch (thank goodness). He whined sadly that he didn’t even want to go to school until all the chiggers were gone. I feel so bad for him!

This weekend when the weather was a divine mid-70s in the morning, the four of us went for a walk, hunting for be-bes. Julian likes to collect them because they are abundant in streets of our neighborhood. I think it’s a popular pastime for neighbors to shoot birds. In any case, they are colorful and small and easy to collect, so Julian’s been doing so for a while.

I found a little collecting bin for Layla, who hunted for stray be-bes on the sidewalk with me, while Julian and Daniel swept the shoulders. We were about 40 minutes into our walk when Layla tripped over uneven sidewalk and fell down. Immediately her big toe started pooling blood and dripping onto the sidewalk. I scooped her up and checked it out and it was just pouring out. It was pretty dramatic and shocking for a seemingly simple “stubbed toe.” So we all turned around and walked home to doctor her up. It was funny, looking back, how close to home we were after having been out one direction for 40 minutes. It took about 5 to get home.

On the walk home I was holding Layla “like a baby” and she closed her eyes and made herself limp. One arm was smooshed between us and her outer arm was dangling in front of us awkwardly. She was awake, and aware, but it seemed like she’d gone “somewhere else” to manage the pain. She kept her eyes closed, peeking open every now and then. She didn’t suck her thumb a single time; it seemed this pain went beyond the remedy of her thumb. When we got home and sat her on the bathroom counter, I found that the blood on her toe had completely congealed and touching it (lightly!) left nothing on my finger. Eventually after running water over it the blood loosened up and we were able to see that she’d scraped off a few thick layers of skin. We bandaged it up and propped up her foot on a pillow on the couch and turned on the tv for a little bit and all was well. It’s still tender, and the next day she even stubbed it again but it’s healing just fine now.

I’m pretty sure she accessed some higher state of mentality and physicality in order to start the healing process of her bloodied toe in that 5 minute commute home. She’s somethin special, that girl.

PS: We’re big fans of True Blood, and recently learned that the protagonist of the series is part fairy. That article describes fairies as “physically, [...] superhumanly strong and durable. They are tough, ferocious…” Hence the name of this post.

Julian had a great first week of Kindergarten. He’s had stories every day about things he does and he’s excited when he tells them. He’s made new friends and seen people who look different than the usual suspect. He’s confidant and comfortable talking to his teachers. Some cool things about his first week:

Parents were allowed to walk their children into the classrooms until Wednesday, leaving them to walk down the long hallway alone on Thursday. On Wednesday, Julian insisted I drop him off at the carpool lane. As we drove through the line I asked him if he was even gonna give me a kiss goodbye?? (since he was all big and stuff) and he said “MOM why wouldn’t I give you a kiss goodbye??” So he did. He unstrapped himself, kissed and hugged me, then Layla, and hopped out of the van. I held up the line for a second or 20 longer than those behind me probably would have liked, but I had to watch my big boy Kindergartender hike up his backpack and walk into school, without a second glance back.

He has a behavior chart that the teacher will color yellow, orange, or red for misbehavior, and if left blank, is for a great day. At the end of the six weeks, anyone with a completely blank sheet will get a treat from a treasure box. Julian is committed and excited about his blank sheet! I bought him some stickers to go in a sticker book for the end of each blank week. He was so happy to get his pack this weekend.

Monday night we talked endlessly about his day. He told me about the little boy with braids and beads in his hair and who wore purple shoes. He wondered why a boy would wear those things. I asked if he was sure it was a boy, and he said yes, that “it goes in the boys’ bathroom.” I just said people are different and like to wear different things.

He told us then about another boy who scared him, a bigger boy who, in his words, didn’t look like a person. ?? He said he had really LONG sharp teeth on the top and bottom in the front of his mouth, that his head was really big, and his chin looked small. He worried that he’d have nightmares about him that night. Knowing the boy is human we reassured Julian that he was just a boy. And told him that lots of people probably feel scared of him when they see him, and that it probably makes him a little sad if that’s the case. We said if he’d talk to the boy, who was, after all, just a boy, maybe he wouldn’t seem so scary. And that maybe, in time, he could ask him some questions about how he’s different.

So the next day after school Julian told us a story something like this: I saw that boy in the hallway and I didn’t look at him and then I was like, he’s just a boy, what am I scared of? So I looked at him again and said Hi, and he was like, Hi.

On Wednesday he told us he made a new friend and that his new friend was named Greece. And Greece wasn’t as scary as he’d first thought, and in fact, Julian decided to sit by him in the computer lab that day, where they played their games together. By Friday, he told us that he had a new best friend, whose name was Reece, not Greece, as he thought. He asked him which it was, and the boy corrected him, then laughed at the name Julian thought he had.

He overcame his fear, felt compassion for the little boy who looked so different, and became his friend. I can’t wait to meet him.

Seeing the ways the world is opening up to my little boy, the ways my boy is opening up to the world, is incredible.

Enjoying this beautiful morning after walking Julian to school.

Julian was so excited and ready for this day! Last night when we tucked him in he said “I don’t to go to sleep. I wish it was already tomorrow!” He and Layla stayed awake in their beds for 2 hours after we said goodnight, talking, laughing, tickling, playing, coloring. We went in there probably 5 times, each with a different tactic. I reminded them nicely, then sternly to be quiet (and to keep the darn light off). I tried to “give up”, telling Julian that he could stay up as long as he wanted; that he and Layla could laugh and play all night long. But that in the morning he was going to feel like total crap and be sleepy all day long on his first day of Kindergarten; that didn’t work. Finally the end-all ultimatum was issued: If I hear your voices again, there’s going to be some serious trouble on your behinds. That put a stop their shenanigans, but it’s certainly not the goodnight I wanted to give.

Julian was a little hard to wake up this morning, but when I told him, “You made it, Julian! You finally made it to Kindergarten!” He opened his eyes and stretched. He told me that “even after all that”, last night, Layla still kept talking. Ha. Poor guy; I’m pretty sure most of the fault lies with Layla, who is the peskiest baby ever. She’ll sometimes just lay in her bed at night sometimes singing his name because she knows it drives him nuts.

But he got ready in a flash and ate up his power breakfast of waffles with peanut butter and honey and a glass of Orange Strawberry Banana juice and we hit the road.

Struggling under the weight of his very heavy backpack.

Here we go!

On the wall outside his classroom were the signs the kids made last week during Meet the Teacher. They were asked to draw a picture of themselves and write their name. As we were looking for Julian’s, which we found on the top right corner (his color was light green and can’t really be seen in this picture), Layla found the one that she made too. oops.

We said goodbye our boy and Layla wanted a hug, too.

Here’s the spot Julian picked to sit and he started to write his name on his two sheets of paper, as instructed.

I took this one as I waited at the doorway for one more look up from him so I could wave once more… but he never did! So big.

And as we left the classroom, Layla cried for her Julian.