It's the end of the 2nd week of school for us, and it hit me just today, my oldest is a fourth grader!
And along with that thought, I immediately had to tell my husband about my two friends, one who is a 5th grade teacher and one who is a 4th grade teacher (both at different schools than my kids attend). My upper elementary teacher friends have stories about how terrible their classrooms smell when the kids come back in after recess and about how every year they beg the school nurse to come give the "your bodies are starting to change and now you need to wear deodorant" lecture to the class or at least send home a note to the parents!
I always laughed at these stories, but y'all, now I HAVE a 4th grader! He is not yet wearing deodorant, but as I asked my husband today, "Is that a party we really want to be late for?" You know, do we want to wait until he starts stinking to introduce the deodorant or go ahead rally the deodorant troops now? Moms of older kids, any wisdom here??
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There's nothing like a kid and their dog, right?
Actually that was the only 5 minutes of the day the dog was being sweet and good, so clearly we had to take pictures!
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Remember this post from last week when I talked about us going to court for the re-adoption of our youngest daughter?
There's a funny back-story.
We'd driven 3 hours to the courthouse. I dressed the kids in comfortable clothes for the roadtrip and packed nicer, church clothes for them to change into before we went in for court. I even packed lunches for everyone so we wouldn't have to stop and get gross, unhealthy fast food. We ate lunch in the car, the kids lunch included an organic squeeze yogurt tube. We got to our destination a little early, so before changing we walked around seeing some sights (during which time my 7 year old badly scraped her leg climbing up some rocks and needed 3 band-aids) and then returned to the car to change clothes. I thought I'd gathered up all the lunch trash way earlier, but wouldn't you know it, literally 3 minutes after my 5 year old son had gotten dressed in his nice clothes, he picked up his squeeze yogurt tube (that was apparently lurking somewhere in the way backseat) and squeezed the entire thing all over his shirt and shorts!
Really?!! Was all I could think. It was like we were on a sitcom comedy show. But, wait, my life often feels like that!
My husband kept saying we'd have to change him back into his other clothes. Seeing as how his other clothes were gym shorts and a t-shirt I said, "No way!" and began wildly wiping him down with baby wipes. He was mostly presentable for court but he reeked of strawberry smell!
So when you see the happy, smiling photo of us all in the courtroom, just know the judge is secretly wondering what is that strawberry smell?!! My 7 year old's leg is all scraped and haphazardly bandaged under her sweet pink dress. And I am holding down Little Girl's hand to keep her from rubbing the back of the judge's head!
Sometimes I even say it out loud to my people, "It's just too much chaos!"
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I'm 10 days into my quest to give up my daily Coke Zero and it's actually going well. I caved and had one on one day but now I'm doing good with my green tea substitute and feel like I'm back up to the same late afternoon energy level I had after drinking the Coke Zero! It's not the caffeine I'm trying to get rid of in my diet, just the artificial caramel coloring.
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We've done a few other diet-related changes recently which has caused me to become an even bigger label reader than before. Now I'm a label studier. Only problem, Little Girl has noticed my attention is not 100% directed on her precious self sitting in the cart's babyseat, so she's taken to yelling from the cart as I'm label reading, "MOM! Look at me! You're not looking at me!"
I finally bribed her with a tic-tac (yes, just one) that she could have at the end of our shopping trip if she stopped screaming at me. It didn't work, then she just kept yelling, "MOM, can I have tic-tac?!!" She didn't get that tic-tac and probably good thing considering the artificial coloring in those babies!
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Happy Friday, Friends!
I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but the "junior age smell" lasts until after the 6th grade. I have six children and we have gone through it five times. My number six child is going through it now. We have tried daily baths, deodorant and double deodorant. In three years, it is gone. But, until then - YIKES!
ReplyDeleteI am having to give up pop too at the moment. I am not a happy camper about it but it is going.
ReplyDeleteI never taught 4th or 5th grade - - - but I taught 6th grade for YEARS. I think MOST of the bad smell after recess isn't actually the BO sweaty smell - - - it is the "wet dog" smell of kids who have been running and playing out in the air. That and rotten tennis shoes which have been heated by little feet until they are simmering over their rotten little aromas.
ReplyDeleteHowever - - - I bet letting your son use deodorant early is better than late, no?
Also, I have two sons - - - they hit an "age" where they just begin to smell. Go into their room in the morning after they wake up, or worse yet while they are still sleeping - - - YIKES!!!
The dog really looked good and sweet. Happy Friday, nice to visit :)
ReplyDeleteThat's good reason to visit a judge. I'm sure he has seen plenty of kids in many different conditions of cleanliness. Since you appear to be very concerned about artificial coloring I would suspect you might not want to promote the deodorant earlier than necessary. Kids can get a little obsessed (ok even adults get obsessed) with deodorant and colognes.
ReplyDeleteSuch a happy picture of all of you! I can't smell the strawberry or see the cut leg from here!
ReplyDeleteI love the picture and I can tell you having all boys, that was usually the case if I wanted them to look nice! It happens every time! I think you should have let little girl rub his head!!! :)
ReplyDeleteI gave my boys a thing of deodorant during those times and made it seem as if it made them BIG boys.....so they loved it.....didn't always remember to use it, but loved it!
Like your pictures. Not many have a family photo like that in a courtroom with a judge in it!
ReplyDeleteI have 3 boys and we started all of them with deodorant in 4th grade. Not necessarily because they really needed it yet, but more because it gave them time to develop the habit, when if they missed it, it wasn't a big deal. All my boys really started needing it sometime during 5th or 6th grade. It took my kids that long to develop the habit consistently...
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