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Winter settled in our home this past month, fierce and ugly. Packed with germs, no person was spared. Even our gato fabuloso was puking, granted less due to illness and more in part to his foolish love affair with monkey grass. For everyone else though, the germs were legit.
I am now on a first name basis with our local pharmacist, have visited far too many doctors ending in an ologist to count and can effortlessly map the fastest route to the pedi-office based on the hour of day.
But now?
With whispered hesitation, I finally feel ready to deem us completely out of the woods. Hear that stuffy-nosed, puny, pukey germs of this world? Mays have closed up shop, stepped up the immunity and are claiming spring.
We even planted flowers. We're that committed.
We're all about the hygiene and hand-washing over here. All those open windows sure have felt nice.
It's not without battle scars though that we welcome the gentle warming of a spring sunshine.
Especially for this one.
It turns out, that throwing up at school in front of your entire first grade class mixed with 8 weeks of belly pain just might have tilted the scale for Molly's love of school all the way down to the place where words like hate and loathing live.
She cried every day at school for about 4 straight weeks, visited the school nurse daily and had a couple chats with the school counselor. And while, I didn't mind all that extra missing mommy love, her complete distaste for school was heartbreaking.
So we stepped back and grew it small.
Less focus on blogging and more on added special together time
Amped up our humor at home
and infused our downtime with sunshine.
She had all the words... so we let her tell us about them.
For all her tiny traits... her thoughts on this world are not. This kid has so much to say.
Not going to lie, the tear-stained journal entries gently tucked under our pillow nightly for parental reading pleasure were really sad. For what felt like a really long time.
And then one day... there were little changes. She was no longer afraid of the cafeteria, came home from school and told us she was ready to buy lunch again. Sunday afternoons became less infused with anxiety and were gradually replaced with relaxation.
Tonight, right before I left for work I rounded the corner and was handed the ole' familiar hello kitty journal. Her nightly special way of telling us she needs to talk. But this time? She didn't write about hating school or feeling sad or missing mommy. She wrote about class valentines. And half birthdays. And school feeling *pretty much* better. There were smiley faces and hearts on the border of the page. I'm not kidding when I say I could hear Abba playing in my head. I looked across the room to Kelly and I swear he did a little twirl in his head---maybe even a jump split.
It was sunshine. Gentle and warming.
Sure felt like spring to me.
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