In Sickness, or in February

There's a reason we in the Northeast have school vacation in February. It's to clear out the GERMS. I've had at least one, if not two, sick kids every day for a week now. Probably again tomorrow, since Sam "feels horrible" but has no symptoms other than a raspy voice and a cough.

Micah stayed home Thursday and Friday.

Sofia popped fevers Saturday and Sunday, and stayed home today.

Sam barfed yesterday and stayed home today; likely again tomorrow.

David returned form Costa Rica Saturday evening, and left for North Carolina Sunday evening, which means he was home just long enough to be exposed to the germs.

Today's staff email included a list of about 10 kids who would be out sick - out of 58 students!

I'm trying to maintain my mommy-zen-acupuncture-enhanced health.

At least, since Sam was also home today, I could go to the gym, and I could also attend the funeral of a wonderful lady from my shul.

Baruch Dayan Emet, Blessed is the True Judge. In memory of Judy Baron.

The funeral was of course sad. She died of cancer, only in her 60s, leaving husband, children, grandchildren, and numerous friends and family. I did not know her well; she was simply part of my Temple Israel family. The funeral was also lovely, as I listed to the beautiful words from the Rabbi, her brother, her daughter-in-law, and both her son and daughter. I envied the calm assurity with which they could all talk about her love for them. It was quite beautiful.

Sigh.

On a better note, Sofia was well enough to go to gymnastics this afternoon, and I booked her birthday party for a Sunday in March.

Which brings me to another problem: although she has of course been invited to the birthday parties for the other six kids in her day school class, she has only been invited to ONE party this year from her public school class. I know that not everyone has a party, but given that there are 19 kids in the class and it's already February, I would have expected at least a handful of parties.

Which could mean any number of things.

It could mean that she's mostly friends with the boys, since they are more on her maturity level, but they had all-boy parties.

It could mean that she was snubbed by certain kids, or certain parents.

It could mean that nobody thought about her.

I don't want to read too much into it, except that we have her IEP meeting coming soon, and this speaks to how much she is actually part of the class.

The purpose of Inclusion is to have all kids BELONG. But if only the "real" students are invited, then my kid doesn't belong. And that sucks.

So I'll be gearing up for that conversation too...

Ok, Sofia seems to think that she can sleep in my bed EVERY night, and now she's hoching me to put my pajamas on. Time to get her out of here!