Finn

We got Finn’s art on Friday, so here is his post. As always, he’s been much more verbose than Ezra when showing us his work, so I’ll add descriptions (for the ones I can remember …).

Chagall’s Fantasy:

Frogs:

His hand and his fifth grade buddy’s hand:

Shoe:

Sheep:

Tree with shadowing on the trunk:

“The guy on the left I call Ezra, because I think Ezra’s cool.”

Landscape:

Cityscape:

In addition to the art from his Spectra Art class, he brought home a couple of things from his regular classroom. First is his butterfly life cycle. He really enjoyed this unit.

And his drawing and photo from the beginning of the year.

When I got to school for pickup one day a couple of weeks ago, Finn couldn’t wait to show me something in his classroom. They’d been working on projects about historical figures. They’d chosen someone they were interested in, read about them and then made a construction paper rendition. As I looked around the room, I saw many Helen Kellers and, if I remember correctly, at least one Abe Lincoln. My boy chose John Lennon. Complete with guitar and amp.

Finn’s second grade class and their “buddy” fifth grade class put on an assembly last month. It was math-themed and they sang a couple of songs and recited a few poems.

Here’s one of the poems — “One Inch Tall” by Shel Silverstein.

Finn had a great time. Here’s a closeup of his little area of the stage.

While we’re on the subject of Finn, he was Star Student in his class a week after the assembly and he made this poster, which I thought was super cute.

On December 9th, I drove Finn and a couple of his classmates to their field trip at History San Jose, where we all learned a bit about what life was like in the Silicon Valley in the 1800s. We started off with the household chores each family would do daily. Collecting water from the well:

Washing clothes:

Milking the cows:

Cleaning rugs:

They also practiced ironing, baking, churning butter and a long process of buttoning shoes.

The children of the time did get to have some fun — with these hoops in the yard.

We also visited the school house and learned how much more formal classrooms used to be.

The kids were told they had to stand up and bow or curtsy before speaking, and that most kids walked up to five miles to get to school each day.

After our tour, the kids got a chance to run around a bit before we headed back to school. Here’s the whole crazy lot of second graders.

The boys’ new school gives out awards at assemblies twice a month. I think it’s one of those every-kid-gets-a-trophy things, which I don’t really support … but it seems like the teachers go to great lengths to give awards for interesting and specific achievements. I love what Finn’s award was for.

On October 8th, I drove a few kids in Finn’s class to their bakery field trip at LeBoulanger in Sunnyvale. They’d been learning about bread and bread making and this visit was the culmination of the unit. But before we get to the bakery itself, let me share the directions we were given.

Notice anything missing? How about which direction to turn? Also, the addresses don’t match and it turns out that the bakery is at 305 North Mathilda (which is noted in Step 9) and not 350 North Mathilda which is in larger print at the top. Luckily for me, I didn’t bother inputting any address and let my phone tell me how to get there so I made it on time. Not so much for a few of the other parents who were more willing to follow the written directions. Score one for the newbie.

Once everyone had arrived, we sat down in the cafe area for a presentation from the manager of the bakery. Everyone got their own ball of dough to shape and play with.

Once we were ready to enter the bakery area, we donned hair nets and hats.

They have a big window in the cafe area where visitors can watch some of what’s going on. We started there.

The kids enjoyed the giant slab of dough on the table in front. They also liked watching another huge batch of dough which was being dumped out onto another table.

Once inside the back part of the bakery, we saw the supply rooms.

I don’t have pictures from inside because we weren’t allowed to have anything glass or breakable. In fact, jewelry, cameras, phones, etc. were all prohibited in an effort to keep anything from accidentally getting in the dough. But we were were able to go inside the big freezer and the warm proofing room, and we saw lots of different types of Rube Goldberg-like machines processing and shaping dough of all kinds.

Each student left with a bag of goodies (a cookie, a bagel and a mini sourdough loaf) and the adults got baguettes, so everyone was pretty happy! Here’s a group shot out in front.

Over the last year or so, Finn developed a bunch of little bumps on various parts of his body — toes, arms, legs, etc. I wasn’t terribly concerned because they didn’t seem to bother him, and when we went for his check up in April with his new pediatrician, she told me they were molluscum contagiosum. Apparently, it’s very common in children; it’s a virus and eventually the bumps go away on their own. They can be treated if they are bothersome, but otherwise they can be left alone. Good, all set.

Fast forward to the first week of June. One of the bumps on the back of his leg was red and I was afraid it was infected, so I made an appointment with the pediatrician to have a look. (I tried getting in to see the dermatologist but their next appointment was weeks out and I thought this needed more timely attention.) So, on Wednesday, June 4th we went in for his doc to have a look. She looked him over and then said something like, “I can take care of these. I have some stuff for them and it’ll make them go away.” It sounded great. She gave me no warnings of ill effects or any other treatment possibilities.

As she applied the medicine, she said, “You may see this bubble up and blister a little bit.” OK … at that point I was still trusting that she knew what she was doing so she proceeded. She painted the medication on all of his bumps with the cotton end of a swab, lifted him down from the exam table, and got ready to leave the room. He started to complain that it was hurting and she said, “It shouldn’t hurt.” And then she left with no instructions or warnings of what was to come.

I helped him get dressed and out the door, and by the time we got home he was in a lot of pain. He sat carefully on the couch, not really wanting to do any activity. That night, he had a hard time sleeping because the bumps, which had developed into huge weeping blisters, were everywhere.

The next morning I put him in a lukewarm bath and took some pictures of the blisters, intending to send them to the doc or nurse to see what was going on. It was pretty gross.

When I called the nurse, she was unable to receive the pictures so I brought him back to the doctor. I was furious by this point and gave an earful to anyone who would listen. By the time of the appointment, Bruce and I had researched how the medication should have been applied — suffice to say, much more sparingly and carefully than it was — and we knew the doctor had screwed up. Because of her sloppiness, he had blisters where he didn’t even have any molluscum. Of course, she wouldn’t admit to any wrongdoing, instead saying things like, “That is a strong reaction” and, “These things happen.” She ended up treating him with cream they use for burn victims and bandaging him up.

He fell asleep on the way home from the office.

This was particularly bad timing because we had planned a surprise trip to Pasadena that weekend — we were leaving the next day. Luckily Finn is such a trooper and despite hating all the bandaids and not being able to swim with his friends over the weekend, he weathered it just fine.

The trip gave us the chance to talk to two of our doctor friends who were both taken aback by the level of blistering. They also both advised us to see a pediatric dermatologist when we got home.

By Monday the blisters were starting to heal and again I soaked him in a bath to get the bandaids off and took some more pictures. They still looked gross.

We had another appointment to get the blisters checked. This time Bruce went with us and, in addition to having another round of burn cream and bandages applied, we found out exactly what medication was used: Cantharone Plus, which is not indicated for patients under 12.

Needless to say, that was the last visit with that doctor. We subsequently took him to a pediatric dermatologist who assured us that his skin will eventually heal, although it may take a couple of years for the color to go back to normal in some places. They also explained how they apply the medication, which confirmed what we knew: that the original doc applied it incorrectly.

It’s two months later now and Finn is doing fine, although significantly more afraid of doctors than he used to be. Can’t really say as I blame him; I feel the same way.

Finn turned 7 a couple of Saturdays ago and we had our traditional morning present-opening extravaganza.

And waffles at his request.

He spent the day playing with his new stuff and building Lego sets.

That evening we were scheduled to meet up with some of Bruce’s high school friends. Finn had okayed the outing and we brought cupcakes along to celebrate. He had insisted on cupcakes so that I had to struggle to put seven candles on one. Those were his words exactly. We worked it out.

It took a few tries but he managed to blow them all out.

And then he dug in to his s’mores cupcake.

Just two days after Ezra’s shearing, Finn decided he also was ready for a new ‘do. He’d talked about it a bit in the last month but wasn’t ready to take the plunge. Someone at school had apparently told him he needed a haircut, so we had the obligatory discussion about how it’s his hair and he can wear it however he wants. He confirmed that he wanted to cut it. I think the few really warm days we had played a part in his decision. All that hair was hot!

He was looking a bit shaggy.

Having no idea where to take him for the cut, I decided to make an appointment at a local place right next to the ice cream store he likes. That way at least I knew he’d have some solace if he hated the haircut.

The old guy at the shop started right in with the clippers after briefly discussing how short Finn wanted to go.

Eek!

Once he got rid of the bulk, things started looking up.

There was so much hair on the floor. This is only one of the piles.

It took quite a while for the shaping and finishing. Finn was pretty patient. And so was Ezra, who made himself at home.

Finally it was all done, Finn was all smiles and we headed to the ice cream store!

After ice cream we rode directly home to get itchy Finn in the shower.

No tears that day and seemingly no regrets, though he says he’s growing it out again. Starting now.