Of snow, snot and Sam

Posted in Mom Stuff
by Julie Wallace

Our world of late has been filled with too much snow, a little bit of Sam and a lot of snot.

The snow part is easy — anyone watching the weather in Northeast Ohio knows that we’ve been pummeled this year, with more snow days off school this year than in recent years. (It’s getting hard to see the neighbor’s home across the street the pile of snow is growing that high.)

As for Sam, he is a character in an easy-read book that our daughter is learning from in school. And it is remarkable because while she sometimes struggles over what I think are simple words, she nails the names of Sam and his cohorts Mit and Mat everytime.

Every night she comes home from kindergarten with a different little book, and she diligently reads it five times — because that’s what the teacher says. She calls up my mom and reads it to her, too.

It amazes me every time I hear her trying to figure out a word –carefully sounding out each letter and then trying to string them together. Forgive me for growing nostalgic about how much simpler kindergarten was when I attended. I think the teacher and our parents were simply happy to have us complete our first year of school with the letters of alphabet firmly planted in our brain, now the little ones are reading?!?!

Of course, we attended school only a half day. My daughter goes for the whole day — something Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland proposed for the entire state during his state of the state address on Wednesday.

As for the snot, well… it is winter in Northeast Ohio, right?

I’m convinced that anyone walking within 20 feet of my daughter with the sniffles is close enough to pass them on to her. We’re on like our fifth round of a cold right now, and she’s had the stomach virus a couple times already, too. This from a kid who rarely was sick before she went to school, and it wasn’t because she wasn’t exposed to kids — she was at a sitter’s house with other children around.

Aside from pumping her full of Vitamin C, I’m at a loss at what more I can do — particularly since the FDA has pretty much told us we are killing our children if we give them cold medicine.

Any suggestions?