Recently in Jacob Category

Jake had his first flu shot this afternoon.

We got there just before closing time (2:00pm), and - unlike yesterday, when I was there for my own flu shot - there was no line. They're amazingly efficient at these things - we were in & out in less than five minutes.

(If only they showed the same level of speed & efficiency during normal visits....)

We decided not to tell Jake what was coming - we just said, "Time for shoes and coat, we have errands to run." Only as Jake and I were walking in the clinic door did I tell him why we were there. He wasn't nearly as upset as I expected him to be.

All the way home, Jake made a big show of how much it hurt, but I think he was just hamming it up for my benefit.

That's three down, one to go: Mr. Sam will get his first flu shot as soon as we can arrange it with the doctor.

(It used to be that I caught one cold per year, and was fine the rest of the time. Then, sometime in the 1990s, I went through a brief but happy period of no colds at all. Then Jake was born, and my immune system was unprepared for all the germs he brought home from daycare. I haven't had an entirely healthy year since. Pity me, pity me.)

Poor Mr. Jake, he's caught some germs. (Most likely, the same germs I've been dealing with for the last week.)

He had a temperature of 101° yesterday, and again this morning.

No school for you, young man. (And on the first day after fall break, too.)

Jacob seems to have caught a cold somewhere. All day he was sniffling & blowing his nose.

It seems like there's more crud in the air lately, so it might be just allergies. At bedtime we dosed him with some benadryl, just in case.

Poor little guy.

Foggy this morning, visibility a quarter-mile or so. Walking around in it, you can feel the mist against your skin. Temperature a bit on the cool side, but not intolerably so.

(I must remember to buy myself a new jacket for autumn. Last year's model surely fits no longer.)

Jake's back in school today. Let us hope he stays there.

Poor Mr. Jake, he's picked up some germs.

Shortly after midnight last night, he woke up Jennifer - he never wakes me up any more; I wonder why - to announce that he was going to throw up. Which he did.

Jennifer got him cleaned up and tucked him back into bed, this time with a bucket (an old coffee can), in case he needed to throw up again.

Which he did, three or four times more over the rest of the night. (He was very neat & tidy about it: no new bedclothes were requred.)

This morning, Jennifer took Jake to Convenient Care, while Sam & I stayed home. (One of us wrote some Python, the other one watched Cars. See if you can guess who did what.)

The diagnosis: the five-minute strep test came back negative, and he had no fever. So no amoxicillin this time. We're to keep him on a bland diet for the rest of today; if he keeps everything down, then tomorrow he'll be back in school.

(By a curious coincidence, yesterday at school Jake's teacher presented a lesson on bucket fillers. Jake surely was a bucket filler last night....)

This morning at the bus stop, Jacob and I talked about...dogs.

I told him I've seen Great Danes big enough to put their paws on my shoulders; big enough to look him - Jake - in the eye.

"That's impossible!" said Jake.

Then Jake said he wants to cross a Great Dane with a weiner dog. We decided to call this new breed the Great Weiner, which made Jake laugh.

I cackled a bit, too, though perhaps not for quite the same reasons as Jake....

Jake is back from a few days' visit to the grandparents. By all accounts, he had a grand time.

In another hour or so we're going to head out to the driveway to watch some fireworks.

Poor Mr. Jake, he's still sick. Fever, sore throat, etc.

We're thinking it's strep throat. Off to the doctor tomorrow, I think....

(My own disease - no worse than a case of sniffles - appears to have cleared up on its own. Perhaps it wasn't a disease after all, just allergies.)

Jake has picked up some germs. Just before bedtime, he had a temperature a little over 100°.

Poor guy, sick on his first week of summer vacation.

(I've been sniffling & sneezing all day myself, but whether that's a cold getting started or just allergies I have no idea.)

Thunderstorms rolled in around 5:00am this morning, and made for a soggy wait at the bus stop with Jake. (It could have been worse: Clay county was under a tornado warning at 7:00am, but here we just got rain.)

Today was Jake's last day of first grade. (And only an hour long, too: most likely to qualify for one more day of state funding, rather than to serve any academic purpose.) How the time does fly.

A second line of thunderstorms rolled in an hour or so ago. Jennifer, Jake & Sam all got rained on, according to a few text messages that popped up on my phone.