The girl's first week at school resulted in one war wound and a cold. Ugh.
The cold was almost slightly expected. June went to school last year, once a week. She went on Mondays and like Swiss clockwork, every Wednesday she'd wake up transformed into a little green snot-nosed monster.
To be completely honest, I really was not expecting that June would catch anything this week. I think I knew it would happen eventually, perhaps when the weather got a little cooler (not that colds are associated with weather at all. well sort of. indirectly. but anyway).
So I was a little surprised last night when June woke up sick. So surprised that, in my half-asleep stupor, I didn't realize she was sick. I thought she was having an ill-timed bout of insomnia. It wasn't until I dragged her into our bed that Dr. Dad saved the day, gave her a dose of Tylenol and 30 minutes later, we were all sleeping again.
But the war wound? THAT I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR.
AT ALL.
On the second day of school, I picked the girl up and was shocked to notice a reddish/purplish wound in the shape of a 'U' on her shoulder. I looked at it closer. All signs pointed to a bite.
A human kid bite.
I was so alarmed I didn't know what to do. I just stood there stunned. Of course I made sure that the skin wasn't broken and that there were no signs of infection and then I walked over to the classroom to talk to the teacher. And for one brief second a good five minutes, I wanted to punch the teacher for not even noticing that June was bitten!
Seriously. She had no clue.
Tim and I were a little concerned that the room the girl's in this year is full of kids that are younger than her. And it didn't help much when one of the co-teachers said to me that she "hoped they didn't lose her in the chaos of all the smaller kids." So when this little biting incident happened fumes started spewing from my head like one of these.
Since I've regained my rationality, I'll give the school a chance to remove itself from my cuss list. And it better do so fairly quickly. I'm not as patient as I used to be.
Comments
Andee
Hee, hee. Guess what? A good number of the nephew/nieces in this family were the biters in their schools. And one of them was even on the verge of being kicked out of their school for biting! In fact (gulp), Brant was a biter. Although Zia was mostly the recipient. What can you do about it? Tell Junie to BITE BACK. Seriously, it seems like once they started getting bitten back, they got the picture and it finally stopped. But you might want to warn the teachers that you’ve told her to do that. Good luck!
jenandmarion@gmail.com
Dang girl! You’re more patient than I am! I’d be school searching already!
kim
andee! i can’t bring myself to tell the girl to bite back…(although i know from personal experience that the “eye for an eye” method really does work) but i have told her to punch the kid in the lip [wink]. i guess i’d just like to know that the teachers are aware of things that are happening in their room. THAT is the rub with the whole situation.
jen, it’s a really good school… can’t give it up on just one, seemingly rare, occurrence. got my jack byrnes circle of trust eyes on them…
LoneStarLifer Paula
Kim,
I am the mother of a biter. Little J chose that as his way to vent frustration. It finally subsided and faded away as he got older and learned to talk & find other ways to vent. Until that time, I walked into the school with downcast eyes, not wanting to look at the other mothers who tsked in their minds and said, “My child would NEVER do that. It’s all about the parenting.”
Since you brought it to the teacher’s attention, I bet she will be watching more closely. I would have been OK if another parent had told their child to bite Little J back if it would stop him. We were at a loss to figure out how to get him to stop biting. Frustrating time for all!!!
@lonestarlifer
Paula