First Day of Preschool

Yesterday was Jackson's first day of preschool! He was so excited and I have some video clips to prove it. He was particularly excited to play at the play ground and eat snacks. He clearly has high academic expectations for the school year.

Jackson was pretty cooperative for my mandatory photo shoot and I got some great shots, but only because I let him have "silly face" shots in between. He's a funny guy.

This is actually my favorite photo, but Jackson prefers the first one because it shows off his backpack. 

Captioned: Are you done yet, Mom?? Oh I just love is brown eyes. 

And check out our Aller-mates bracelet (and the remnant of a "temporary tattoo that refuses to wash off). Jackson was so compliant with his bracelet! That little piece of rubbery-plastic just makes me feel much more at ease (and perhaps the three phone calls to and from the school nurse helped, too). 

This was at the school waiting for the doors to open. The sunglasses were definitely helpful because it was bright and sunny day, but also to mask the few tears that surfaced. It wasn't really about dropping him off, but hearing him pray before we went in. On the way to the school, I prayed for him to be brave and good listener, to have fun and learn lots of new things. He prayed similarly, but also added "for the time to go by quickly because three hours is a long time and I will miss my Mom."

He's going to have a great time with Ms. Mary Kay!! 

When I picked him up, he was beaming with excitement and He could hardly wait to Skype with Derek at bedtime. It's going to be a good year!

They will poke me?

I told Jackson that we were going to take him to the doctor today. And his reply, "they will poke me??" This is what he remembers from his last appointment.

A total of 12 pokes. The nurse was a poking wizard-- she double fisted it and did 10 all at once. Jackson hardly budged and just said, "ouch!"

After a year and a half of the doctors telling me that kids cannot have seasonal allergies before they are 3 years old, I finally convinced them to have Jackson tested. Using the doctors words, Jackson has the severity of allergies he would normally expect from an 8-year-old, not a two-year-old. It took a lot of composure to not shout, "I told you so!!!" I know my kid, k? So, now we at least have a way to prevent his allergies instead of always just treating them after he has all of the symptoms.

We left that day with about a million (or five) prescriptions to help manage it- pills, eye drops, nose spray, refill inhalers... and also to consider having him do allergy shots. Ugh. It's a five year treatment program of receiving allergy shots with a serum made uniquely for his allergies. He will start having shots every week and then every six months, he will go a week further between shots (every two weeks, every three weeks) until he gets to every 6 weeks. He will then finish up the remaining of the 5 years going every 6 weeks. And at the end, he will be allergy free, or at least significantly minimized.

Do I want to take him in to get multiple shots weekly? Not at all. Do I want an extra thing to keep track of? Nope. But, how amazing will it be that he will never know the miserable symptoms of severe allergies. Derek has done the shots and got amazing results within just a few months, so we know it works... and his allergies are awful. So, we're going to do the shots.

And so, I couldn't lie to Jackson. I had to say, "yes, they will poke you." He seems cool about it all. Hopefully he takes it like a champ. Plus, he gets a sucker and a sticker every time we go.