Sandwich

How many random little bits can I cram into this post?

* We had a surprisingly nice holiday.No spats. No tension. Lots of food and even more wine (see last post, note my blushes- "muscial"? good grief.) Everyone cooperated and Patrick had so much fun with his cousins I thought the excitement might kill him. He. Was. So. Happy. To. Have. Kids. In. The. House.

* Last Tuesday I went to Patrick's first parent-teacher conference at the preschool (they are required to hold two a year to stay licensed.) During the prior week she had assessed them from a short list of different skills like counting, shape recognition, etc... . Patrick, she began, was able to recognize his printed name. Patrick, I could have told her but did not because, well, why would I, suggested that we change the "a" in his book to two "o's" and then the pig in the story would SPLOOSH! into the water rather than SPLASH! Because, in his words, a big pig like that would make more of a splooshing sound when it hit. He also looked at the word "segue" the other day, had me pronounce it, looked at it again before stating, critically, "One of us is wrong, mommy." And you can see his point. So, yes, he can recognize his name. It is his thing. Also he got all of the shapes right and the colors and he was the only kid in both classes who instantly counted all of the objects in his head and... well, you know Patrick. He's good with these school-y skills. BUT he FAILED scissors. Failed completely. She tried to have him cut a straight line and he almost took off a finger. So she suggested ways I can help him with his scissor work at home, and I was suitably chastened. Numbers are cool and all but numbers can't get you out of a brown paper bag, should the need arise.

The informative part, actually, was getting to hear about how Patrick is blossoming around the other kids. He was very shy and reserved for the first few weeks but she told me that he has come around. He is the go-to man for help with puzzles or the computers and he is always willing to play with everybody. She said he was delightful. And I was delighted. You just want your child to be happy and nice, you know?

* Speaking of schools, this morning Steve and I toured the Montessori school we had talked about last year. Steve loved it. I liked it. It has all of those nifty Montessori materials plus sixteen acres and a few alpaca. But.... I don't know. Something about the place didn't seem quite right for Patrick. If I could articulate it maybe you could help me with it but I am struggling to figure out what did not quite work for me. Maybe *I* am more of a traditionalist and I had a hard time with the apparent lack of structure? But Patrick would totally thrive? I don't know. I will have to think about it and in the meantime I think we need to look some other places, including the public school here. We have another year and a half until kindergarten but it is my nature to freakout early and often. Keeps the blood flowing.

*Hey hey! Blood flowing! I am on a sequiturial ROLL here! Speaking of flowing blood, Steve's sister, the nurse practitioner, convinced me that my stitches should come out. She only leaves them in her patients for three days, she said. She poked at mine and tsk'd and said, yep, they should come out. As I am not anxious to haul myself back to my primary care clinic where I would have to wait and would probably catch something gross, I said ok. She took manicure scissors and tweezers and some rubbing alcohol and removed the sutures. And left. And my abdominal wound promptly popped back open and is slowly leaking blood as I type (four days later.) Steve said it looks like a gun shot wound and, what with the round blackish-reddish hole, I would have to agree.

The universal lesson here is:  um, don't listen to my sister-in-law.

The question is: do I have to get this thing re-stitched? 

Comments

[Anne Glamore]

My oldest failed scissors, too. One of my twins was never able to master coloring within the lines. He was good at sharing, but NOT his food. In fact, he stole everyone else's.

Then at one I learned one of my boys had hit the judge's daughter. The judge my husband had a case in front of. His defense? "She was being obnoxious."
Conferences make me nervous.

[Jessica]

I dunno, I bet the Montessori school would be great for a kid who can read at his age--he'd probably be bored in regular school. My cousin (who is now 9) had hyperlexia and has Asperger's syndrome, and my aunt found that only the Montessori schools were really able to nurture her strengths while working on her weaknesses, whereas in a regular school it would have been 99% about what was wrong with her, not what was right. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with *your* kid, just that he might like a Montessori school better, and it worked really well for super early readers like my cousin.

[MFA Mama]

You have an OPEN WOUND??? I dunno about the re-stitching thing...I'm not a nurse or anything, although I live in hospitals lately and have recently learned how to stick a feeding tube down an infant's nose (!!!)...my oldest failed scissors too--came home from the first day of scissor week with a bandaid and an accident report sheet...then kept coming home with projects that were supposed to be cut (that he had instead ripped neatly and painstakingly around the lines). When asked why he hadn't cut them, he looked at us like we were crazy and said "because I'll CUT myself, silly."

[Hillary]

Er - every mammal I've done surgery on (and the list includes dogs, cats, rabbits, various rodentia, cows, horses, marmosets, pigs, and probably one or two others that I'm not thinking of right now. Oh, like ferrets. Etc...) needs the sutures to stay in for 7-10 days - not 3 days! I don't know if you need to get it resutured - if it's large, and you don't want the scarring you'll get when it heals via second intention, then - um - yes, you do! But you probably won't, like, DIE if you don't. It's likely just cosmetic - unless you have, like, exposed your peritoneum or something. I'd keep it covered with some nonstick gauze until it heals up, if you don't resuture...

[Cris]

I'm not to be distracted by the open wound story and would like to hear more about the birth mother pushiness. In our case, the birth family would meet my father-in-law (who was adopted) and wonder why they ever went out of their way to meet the baby that grew into such a jackass.

[Heather]

Not to one up you, but my 4-year-old flunked SKIPPING. I demanded he skip for me in the kitchen, and then I laughed and laughed and laughed. (If I may, get the Sunday paper and have Patrick cut out the coupons.)

[mp]

oh yes, school dilemmas. I'm smack in the middle of my own. You see, my son, age 4 1/4 (as he will surely tell you), will be starting Kindergarten in the fall. Only we're moving. Sometime between now and fall. And I don't know where yet. So I'm unable to scout out schools for him. He's recently started to read - aloud - to us from books that claim to be Level 2. Sure, he gets some of the "hard" words (pure memorization on his part), but struggles with the so-called easy stuff like "when" and gets confused about the differences between "the" "then" and "they". He's not a phonics reader, rather a "whole language" kind of kid. And he's a whiz - WHIZ - on the computer. He can download our pictures from the digital camera on the desktop without adult intervention and has a favorites list of kid websites longer than my own. He's good with scissors, but please don't ask him to tie his shoes or put his own socks on. And yet... yet... he's very rule oriented. I don't believe he'd do well in a Montessori school because he's not self directed in the least. I hear "I'm bored" and "mom, what can I DOOOO???!!" far, far too often. You need to point him in a direction or he stalls. So, a more traditional school environment will probably work. But WHICH SCHOOL? Do we brave the big class size and go public, or do we risk taking on tuition costs and enroll him in a private school with smaller class sizes and more attention? He needs the attention and I fear will get lost in a big class. He's able to write his name and is beginning to do math problems, but barely draws pictures. ARt does not interest him. Videos! They interest him. So I'm at a cross-roads. I WANT to start investigating schools, and yet am unable to. The anxiety builds. Good for you for looking into it early - can't hurt, right?

[lindy]

I agree with MP's insight that whether a kid is self-directed plays a big part in whether he'll do well in a Montessori school. I went to Montessori from pre-school through second grade and even though it sounds silly, I really think that had a lot to do with my ability to make the most of a pretty piss poor public school education after that.

Patrick (and I'm totally in love with him, by the way, and hoping to have a daughter or a gay son someday so that he or she can court Patrick and make him my son-in-law) strikes me as perfect for Montessori, but you have to go with your gut feeling.

[Toni]

Lacking a lot of sleep over here...so here's my assvice...

1) It may be too late to get restitched. Something about a short window to get it done - otherwise it's too late. Might want to use some tape to keep it closed and clean. Not a doctor - but dealt with enought stitches to be one.

2) Don't send Patrick to a school you're not comfortable with. You'll be less likely to want to drop him off - and he'll 'feel' the apprehension.

3) Congrats on the successful Thanksgiving. If only my relatives were that thoughtful...I only got to find out that my sister's boobs are fake - and not in the stuffed bra way. Why someone would go into hock for boobs is beyond me.

[Amy]

One word in your post would make the Kindergarten decision for me: ALPACA. How cool is that?

Also, be careful with the scissor thing. Eventually he'll want to use staplers and that can get ugly. One of my fourth grade students managed to insert both legs of a staple completely into the pad of his thumb. I think the creepiest part of it was that there wasn't a drop of blood.

[Cat, Galloping]

okay, gross about the sister-in-law thing.

as for schools, my older nephew (5.5) is a lot like patrick intellectually and for him a traditional school where he comes in, sits at a desk and does work was right-- actually his preschool was like this, apparently-- and a montessori would not have been.

[Amber]

No advice on anything. I just want to know if you could write a big book. Maybe 3 of them. I love reading you.

[Susan]

Montessori is not for us - Shannon enjoys following rules and knowing what comes next. Also, the Montessori schools around us want the kids to go five days a week, and I've known young children that have struggled with such a commitment and had to reduce the amount of time (for heavens' sake, one child cried at school for two weeks until the teacher finally told the mom to cut back the hours).

[stephanie]

I would just get some butterfly tape and tape it shut for a week or so.

[Lala]

yep, chances of getting it restitched are close to nil, chances of getting it glued are better, either way you'll have a funky scar with a story to go along.

[iselyahna]

My mom's a nurse, so I know a tiny bit about this kind of stuff - glue would probably be your best bet and it just goes away by itself really. So I'd go get it looked at; you could get some pretty funky disfiguration and scarring otherwise. (Like, you know, a big dent. You could use it as a shotglass if it's deep enough. (That was gross and uncalled for, sorry.))

[Linda]

Oooh, oooh, ooh, I know the answer to this one. Restitched? No way. The edges of that wound have started to heal without their edges touching and they will not "stick" together without fresh new margins. The wound will now heal from the bottom up and "granulate" in. Keep it covered (and you might even want to use a little antibiotic ointment to keep it moist) until it heals. Forget the "let the air get to it" advice of old. If you don't like how it looks after it's healed it could always be excised for a prettier looking end result (depends on how you scar - sometimes these things are best left alone). I'm personally into pain minimization and since my days of swimsuit model are past, what the hey? Gotta be disgusting to let someone cut on me simply for cosmetics (remember the "mixed with what? Fire?")
Not much advice on the school front - go with your gut and then let it go. Be prepared to change if it's not working, And remember, kids are remarkably resilient, and frequently do well in spite of us (ref: Bruno Bettelheim, A Good Enough Parent)

[Karen]

The stitches: butterfly or steristrip the wound. Next time, if the stitches are in an area of very little tension, remove them at five days and apply benzoin and steristrips. (I'm a general surgeon).

Preschool and thoughts on Montessori: My daughter, who will be four in January, attends, at her request, day care in the morning, so she can play with others. They have a schedule of events, ie circle time, Muzzy time, etc., but from what I can see on the parent-cam, the kids do quite a bit of playing. The place can be raucous. She loves it. In the afternoon she attends Montessori. The learning is self-directed, but the teacher makes sure she gets all of her "lessons" done. The place is quiet and orderly. And she loves it! Our parent-teacher conference was a little like yours, although she is not nearly as advanced as Patrick. I have to admit that when I was informed that she could count to ten, I lost all restraint and asked if perhaps they had thought to ask her to count to one hundred? There are formal lesson times, and they do move her up with the older children for those. About a week after the conference I asked my daughter how high she was counting at school, and she said, "To twenty, but I count higher at home". It is my understanding that many bright children do this at school (to not stand out? she can be shy around other children sometimes). At least at Montessori, if you bring it to the teacher's attention, the teacher is willing to begin challenging the child a bit more, but in a completely non-threatening way. We have approached learning at home primarily through play, so that she will hopefully continue to love learning. This blends in nicely with Montessori. We must be doing something right: she recently told me she wanted to move into town, so we could live closer to the book store!

[wix]

1. i failed pouring. it is still one of my weaker skills when inhebriated.
1a. spelling is never a strong skill of mine, drunk, sober, asleep, rocket fueled, whatever.
2. i loved montessori school. i think there is more structure there than is immediately apparent if you don't know exactly what to look for.
3. i took CX's stitches (long story to be posted sometime) out myself with more or less the same apparati your SIL used. but we waited a week.

[wix]

1. i failed pouring. it is still one of my weaker skills when inhebriated.
1a. spelling is never a strong skill of mine, drunk, sober, asleep, rocket fueled, whatever.
2. i loved montessori school. i think there is more structure there than is immediately apparent if you don't know exactly what to look for.
3. i took CX's stitches (long story to be posted sometime) out myself with more or less the same apparati your SIL used. but we waited a week.

[victoria]

Did you notice how in this post BOTH your s.i.l. & your son fail to use scissors appropriately? Mmmm hmmm. There's more sequituricity in this post than you realized.

[Dale Ann]

I have second dibs on Patrick as a son-in-law if lindy's daughter or gay son doesn't claim him first. That secures it for us doesn't it? Like calling shotgun for the front seat? Please say it does.

No worthwhile opinions on wounds or schools. Sorry don't know lots about either, yet.

Is sequituricity really a word? I am both loving it, and very impressed.

[Kathleen]

Hey -- Everyone's talking about the scissors and the stiches and the school, but no one's talking about crazy birth mothers!

I think everyone DOES notice the inapporpriate pseudo-maternal jackassery,

My "B" Mom, as I like to call her, refused to visit my apartment because I was living in sin in it with my husband-to-be. I wanted so badly to point out the hypocrisy, but I decided it would be better for the health of our relationship if I simply ignored it... this one decision has started me down the path of ignoring most everything.

[lisa]

montessori can be good for a child who is driven and who has relations outside of the school with peopel their own age. I was an RA on a floor with a young woman who had been in montessori and she had very few social skills, couldnt pick up on social cues adn the way people interact with one another, and she herself interacted with everyone like she was 9 or 10. She hadn't been around peopel older than that for lengthy periods of time. It was frustrating to help her out with things (add drinking to the mix and oh man!) and thank goodness she had an amazing roomie who helped socialize her!

[reba]

My niece failed tricycle riding. Her reasoning was why ride a bike when you own a powerwheels?

[Pink Rocket]

Your son sounds like mine...Jerrett will be 4 in December and is already reading at probably a 2nd/3rd grade level and knows WAY too much about computers, etc. I am seriously thinking about putting him in a Montessori school or home schooling him when it's time. I have a HUGE fear that he'll get lost in the crowd and be bored any other way. I think until then I'm going to research all my options...it's good to stay on the ball.

[Mizz Drizz]

Super Glue works wonders for open wounds, and all of the chemicals kill bacteria. Not pretty, but effective.

Patrick is incredible... He'll thrive wherever you send him. Moms know best, though!

[Marsha]

I had knee surgery (a complicated reconstruction) without benefit of any kind of sutures - just some tape. Everything healed fine and the scar is as minimal as can be expected. I say slap some neosporin on there, tape it up and keep an eye on it. Of course, what I know of nursing I read in your comments so your mileage may vary.

As for schools, yeah. My son isn't gifted but he's certainly precocious and I'm having a hard time finding somewhere where he's not doomed to be either the class geek or bored out of his little skull ("Mom, it's a cranium."). We punted on preschool and K and have cobbled together a program consisting of me, Sunday school, art classes, golf lessons and library story time and are actively in denial about the next steps we need to take, school-wise.

[Andie]

My advice is to just relax about the school situation. Most kids starting K can read and the majority of public schools are not the evil they are made out to be. If your son is truly "gifted" (which I know we ALL like to think ours are), they are more than equipped to handle it. My oldest read before K and is now in the 5th grade and reads at the 11th. We have had to attend 2 different public schools because of a move and each school was more than capable at handling his needs and the needs of the other children. Our class size is small, its a traditional education and its fun and normal. The bottom line in my opinion is let them have recess and be kids.

[reenie]

I think a Montessori school sounds perfect for Patrick. I love the idea that they get more individualized attention and can learn at their own pace. When I was in first grade at a public school, I was constantly in trouble for talking to the other kids. I was bored out of my mind and was forced to wear earphones so I couldn’t hear the other students. (What this accomplished, I don’t know – I could still talk…I just talked louder so I could hear myself. HA!) I always had my work done, though…and could always answer the teacher’s questions. It’s difficult in a public school setting to help each child flourish…I’m sure there were some students who struggled to keep up and I just get sad when I think my son could either fall behind or be in trouble for being ahead of the class and getting bored enough to misbehave.

Good luck with your gunshot wound…imagine the stories you could tell people if you went two-piecing in public.

[tracy]

The reason they only point out such seemingly low-level skills is because that's what's on the checklist. And it's on the checklist because that's what's typical for those children. The checklist for a kid Patrick's age does not have spaces for "so cute and creative and smart that hundreds of women he's never even met are plotting to somehow get him as a son in law." In Karen's daughter's case, the checklist for a 4.5 yr old does not say "counts to 100." So, while your child's teacher is probably aware that they can do more than that, it's not going to be on the official checklist and therefore they haven't officially "tested" that skill, so it might not be mentioned during an official review.

BTW, my DD is 6, likes younger men, is cute and smart and very available. And they'd make such beauuuutiful grandbabies.

[Liz]

Karen-

I remember being in kindergarten and being asked to count for an evaluation. I started going, and kept at it waiting for the teacher to stop me. I got to 100, and looked at her bored out of my mind and wanting to go play with the other kids. She asked if I knew what came next, and I considered it, and lied and said I didn't because I didn't want to keep counting. So I can understand the logic of quitting at 20. If you go to 30, they're going to want 40!

Liz

[Tree]

Ack you have an open wound! I have some of that instant glue stuff if you want me to come heal you.
Wow, that Patrick's a smartie. Aidan, who is only days apart from Patrick's age, has no interest in letters or numbers, but we're encouraging him. He's very good at coloring, though. Maybe he'll be an artist?

[Rebecca]

Another school obsesser here weighing in on the Montessori thing, as Partick sounds awfully similar to my Julia (2 months shy of 4 and reading & writing quite well, but also completely flummoxed by the scissor thing).

After much deliberation, we opted *not* to go the Montessori route because we felt that it emphasized skills that were already quite developed in our child. She would likely love the self-directed format and thrive academically. But that environment would be less likely to address her challenges, which involve opening up in social situations. I suspect it will be a number of years before Julia has the opportunity to learn much at school in the traditional academic sense. I'm not too bothered by that, since she seems to be doing quite well on her own. If most of the kids in her preschool class are challenged by learning that B goes "buh", she's challenged by learning how to participate in all of the silly "buh" games that follow the lesson. And so in the end, we think she'll actually end up learning more in a traditional group instructional setting; she'll just learn different stuff than one might expect a kid her age to be learning in school.

No idea if this is the same line of thinking you're struggling with, but I know that once I was able to articulate what it was that I *did* want Julia to learn in school (speaking up & sharing what she knows with the group, etc.), it became clear to me why I kept having that nagging feeling that Montessori was not the right option for us. Hope it helps, even if you end up reaching the oppostite conclusion!

[Heather]

Don't fret the scissors thing. I couldn't cut a straight line to save my a$$ when I was 4 years old. I even remember having an argument with my nursery school teacher because I didn't even want to practice cutting straight lines. I mean it was so boring. I wanted to read a good book. I read at three years old (not bragging, just a fact).

And I turned out about as normal as any person can. And I can cut a straight line. Especially when I use my straight edge and a rotary cutter when I'm quilting. LOL. I think it's much cooler to do math in your head and not use a calculator than be able to cut a straight line without using tools.

[Jessica]

I can't say anything about the wound... although my c-section incision was not stiched, but stery-striped and it looks pretty good!

Nothing to say about the B-mom thing either... sorry!

However I have to agree with people who say that Montesori is great for kids who can self direct. It would have been a terrible place for me, the ultimate underachiever. Whenever we had "work at your own pace" projects at school I always did the bare minimum. Does this montesori program have a summer program/camp that he could try?

ps. Bruno Bettelheim commited suicide because he realized that much of his parenting advice was not only bogus, but damaging. (He claimed for years that kids became autistic because of bad parenting.) He may not be the best authority to rely on.

[Zoë]

Maybe patrick is left-handed? Or ambidextrous, but with the left slightly dominant in the case of sissors? I'm left-handed and struggle even now as an adult to cut straight with "normal" sissors. My sister, an ambi, writes with her right hand, but seems to only be able to cut properly with her left and left handed sissors....
as for the open-wound; my tow-cents is glue, as its too late for restiching and open wounds are icky!
Mountessori: I think that even if this montessori school isn't right for patrick it might be worth looking at others in the area, or even other non-montessori non-public school options. I can't help but think in the light of my own childhood experiance that sending patrick to public school would not make him all that happy.

Re: Susans comment about children going to school five days a week... These children are 4-5 right?
I'm british, I started going to school when I was 2 years and 5 months(yes actual school, there was playing and all that but I remember my first day, where I impressed my teacher by showing her I could write my name... admittedly I have a short name, and I was already reading by then and as such am admittedly a mutant) anyway that was only for half days 5 days a week, but by 3 I was in full time education. In some parts of the UK this is the norm, and while many children do go though the normal process of being upset while adjusting to the change, it is not a big deal I think that every child in the UK public school system attends full time after they're 5.

[Dawn]

Since he loves letters so much, why not have him cut out letters to do art with?
Just a thought.

[Patti]

Throw some butterfly bandages on the wound and avoid the doctor's office. After all, that way you don't have to return to get them out.

Unless, you are paranoid about scars and not like me who thinks they are badges of honor. I played way too much rugby in college not to think that scars are cool.

Patti

[Elin]

Good Christ! Whatever you do, don't let your sister-in-law come near you with the super-glue!

ICK!

Blackish-reddish? Got any of that Bag-Balm yet? I'd be worried about infection.....

[Madeline]

My 4 year old can cut excellent shapes with scissors. She passed the 3 year old scissor test with flying colors ... she zigged, she zagged. She knows how to print 2 letters. H and t. She only knows the name for H. Am I the only one who doesn't have a 4 year old who is reading??!!

[Ruth]

A deep seated fear of overbearing pseudo-maternal/paternal jackassery is one of the reasons I haven't done anything about looking for my birth parents.

Sutures need to stay in 7-10 days and then they are fine to remove on your own as long as there isn't any infection and things have healed progressively on their own.
As for having it restitched I don't think they will do it because of the risk of infection after it's been open this long. Keep an eye on the edges of the wound for discoloration, heat, and odor. I would suggest you keep it covered with a bandage and neosporin. Change the dressing several times a day and don't get it wet. Apply the neosporin to the bandage and not directly to the wound.

[Kristin]

Hmmm...somebody raised the question of which hand Patrick prefers, and that got me thinking. I'm left-handed, but I always use regular right-handed scissors; back in the day, it seemed there were never enough lefty scissors in the classroom, and the ones that were there just never worked that well. Anything I tried to cut with lefty scissors came out looking like the dog chewed it up. So I just grabbed a pair of regular ones and got used to them with no problem. So me, most things I do left-handed, but most definitely not that. Then there's my good friend the doctor, who is also very thoroughly left-handed, but uses his right hand for a lot of his fine motor work (anything from fixing his wristwatch to holding a scalpel). (He and I both play guitar in righty-fashion.)

My point is that handedness is tricky, changeable, and not always consistent. Your earlier commenter raised an intriguing thought: it might be fun (and I would think harmless) to let Patrick experiment with lefty scissors if he's right-handed OR to give him regular ones if he's left-handed, just to see if he has any better luck with thedifferent set-up, different blades, etc..

By the way, did any other lefty kids out there resent the fact that the righty scissors all had nice elegant points on them, while the lefty scissors were all blunt and rounded on the ends? I mean, it makes a kid want to say, "Dude, I'm not clumsy, or violent. I'm just left-handed. When can I graduate to using the pointy ones, please?" =P

[Julie]

Julia, my dear. Do NOT worry about the scissor issue. My wonderful sister flunked scissors in kindergaten!! I'll have you know she's a well adjusted, productive member of society and has been a wonderful 4th-5th grade teacher for 20 + years. Also note that she's never really grasped the scissors concept completely. She still doesn't cut all that straight and every Christmas I beg for paperdolls!LOL But, she's turned out very well. You have nothing to worry about with Patrick. If he didn't poke his eyes out with them, then he's on the right track! Because after all, He. is. ONLY. THREE. (So someone once poinsted out to you a few posts ago!!) :oP

As far as your open wound, 3 days was a little soon. I think 7-10 days is the norm. I do understand from reading your entire blog that you, my friend, are not the norm! I mean that in the nicest of ways. I'd get thine ass to a dr. and at least get some of that suture glue stuff. If it's gapped open you are at risk for an even bigger scar and possibly more infection. Being the vain person I am, I'd be more worried about the actual hideous scar. Of course, my belly looks like some kind of sadistic kid who flunked scissors actually got a hold of it! Get thee to a physician!!!

Always,
Julie

[Amy J]

Honestly, don't worry too much about the scissors thing. Give Patrick ample opportunity to practice cutting at home combined with what he's already doing at school. It will come.

Also, this is totally OT, but I thought of you when I saw this while Christmas shopping today...Habitant Pea Soup at The Vermont Country Store website. 3 cans for $9.90 or something like that. Isn't that the same soup you raved about awhile back?
http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=29023&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=39&iSubCat=174&iProductID=29023

[patricia]

My son is good at the book learnin', but also not so hot at the coordination bits. But a lot of smart kids are like that.

We did preschool in a very mellow Montessori and we loved the teachers - but I did find out that Montessori wasn't the best for my son. Apparently he would often visit other students to find out what "work" they were doing. He was a little too social to complete his own work. He is not doing Montessori for Kindergarten.

In my view, Kindergarten is a great thing to obsess about. You get to do tons of research and make a concrete decision. While going through my miscarriages I felt very lucky to have something so motherly to fixate on. So go nuts.

[Belinda]

YIKES! Update, please--what has been done about the gaping wound? I've had so many surgeries that I've removed my own before, but never ever earlier than 10 days. Now I am concerned! God forbid you form "proud flesh" that has to be cauterized off with silver nitrate...my husband had that happen once with a surgical wound, and even though it's exactly the same substance as the silver nitrate sticks at the doctor's office, he simply would NOT let me pack it with "Proud Flesh Powder" from the feed store and apply a pressure bandage like I'd do on a horse's leg. Sissy.

[Kellie]

Your sister in law should never take stitches out in 3 days. That is way too soon. At this point it is too late to have it reclosed. Just keep it clean and it should eventually heal.

Your son sounds like a treasure.

[Kimberly]

I failed "running backwards" in kindergarten, which resulted in Mom, Dad and I running laps around our house. Backwards.

Until they wondered when, if ever, I'd have to run backwards unless I was in sports.

I had troubles with scissors, but only that I used to open and close my jaw with every 'snip' that I make. I still do that today, without realizing it!