First Days of School (and End of Medicine!)

Picture to come, but the girls have had a great start to the new school year at St. Peter's. Wendy is now in 2nd grade with Mrs. Harding, and Fer is in 3rd with Ms. Guerra (for now, she will go on maternity leave at the end of the month and Fer will have a substitute til January, I believe). It has been a very smooth transition to the new year -- they are both happy and excited, enjoying seeing their old friends and making some new ones, and the first homework assignments were completed with alacrity and relative ease! We are so pleased with their enthusiasm and positive attitude. Next week the girls will start afterschool with a little time at St. Peter's afterschool program before the bus from Triple S Tutoring in Riverdale comes to take them to an academic/homework help afterschool program. We are hoping that they will come home at 5:30 with all homework done and ready for some fun family time! Or at least ready to relax on the couch with Barbies or babies, drawing and perhaps a little TV. :)

On Wednesday, we also ended the regime of medicine that we have been on since mid-August. We found when we did a final round of lab tests that the girls had an asymptomatic parasite which needed to be treated. Unfortunately, despite obtaining a specialized children's flavored version of the medicine from a gold-plated non-insurance-taking pharmacy in Connecticut, the girls really hated it. They had to take two kinds (cherry and tangerine) for 2 weeks, and then finish up the tangerine for a final week. Wendy especially loathed the cherry, and I will say we got quite creative in trying to get the stuff down, three times a day. Some tips if you find yourself in similar straits:
-make it a race, between the children or between parent-child teams
-count down from numbers of the child's choice before taking it (sometimes this needs to happen several times)
-offer M&M's after each dose to take away the bad taste
-make sugar cookies (in the shape of dog bones, natch) to take away the bad taste
-pretend to play "jokes" of not taking the medicine while really taking it very quickly and in secret. These "jokes" can be on any member of the family, though Papi was the girls' preferred target.
-have friends act as cheerleaders while the children take it
-have the children stand back-to-back and take it at the exact same time
-make a chart and put a smiley-face for each medicine time with no problems
-have medicine be the pre-requisite for going to the beach, the mini-golf, the game room, the ice-cream parlor (helps if you are in a beach hotel for that one)
-do it first thing in the morning before any other activity
-have it be the pre-requisite for TV or a movie
-end with a celebration at Target! Barbie time!!
As you may be able to tell, it really was quite an ordeal. Now we wait to hear if it worked! We should learn in the next two weeks if they are cured.