First Week of Kindergarten
Everyone made it through my daughter’s first week of kindergarten with relatively few battle scars — my daughter, me, her teacher, the other kids, the public health nurse.
In honesty, I know very little of what happens in her classroom. There are 27 kids. 1 teacher. 1 assistant. My daughter reports less and less of what happens in her classroom every day. (She turned 5 last week. I think she’s 5 going on 13.) Here’s what I do know:
- There’s a big nut-free sign in front of the door to her classroom. Kids wash hands with wipes before and after snack. The teacher distributed a letter from the public health nurse to the parents of her classmates at open house telling them not to bring nuts or nut products for snack. The teachers apparently check the snack boxes to assure the integrity of the nut-free classroom. (Though in practical purposes, I don’t know what that means since my daughter said that all of the kids and their parents must be following the rules, which I find hard to believe the first week of school, since no one’s snack has yet to be confiscated.)
- The teacher and public health nurse make me feel like they think I’m a bit crazy/neurotic — at least compared with other parents of food allergic kids at the school.
- Allegedly, I’m the only parent who flagged food allergies for the school administration prior to the beginning of school. At the open house, and on the first day of school, I saw parents (of kindergarteners, even) strolling casually into the health clinic asking if they needed to fill out any forms to leave an epi-pen at school. Who are these folks? Why are they so calm about this?
- I’m also in the minority of parents who will not allow my child to ride the bus given that she is not allowed to carry an epi-pen or benedryl on the bus.
- The public health nurse raised an eyebrow me for further modifying my daughter’s health forms to specifically account for how I wanted skin contact with cheese and cheese residue to be handled. She claimed that I didn’t need to be that specific - that a catchall buzzword I used on the form would allow the desired course of action to be taken. I am tired of the county demanding specific language to cover its liability while not allowing parents to spell out how they want their children to be appropriately cared for under specific circumstances.
- I’m kind of annoyed about how birthdays (and birthday snacks) are handled. Coming from the world of preschool — where the teacher made kids a crown, everyone sang, and parents could bring whatever nut-free product they want … public school is a whole other ball of wax. On Thursday, no one sang to my daughter. The teacher privately said happy birthday — but none of her classmates even knew. Birthdays are celebrated once a month for all the kids in the class with birthdays that month. Seems reasonable. The school has a rule that birthday snacks for the class have to be store bought — so that there are clear food labels, reduced risk of cross-contamination, and food being prepared under stricter sanitary conditions. Not happy I can’t make cupcakes, but still seems reasonable. So, I ask the teacher if I can bring Philly Swirls — because I can’t buy cupcakes/cookies from a dairy-free/nut-free facility. Her first answer was no - that she will limit the birthday celebrations to store-cut fruit … so that everyone can share in the birthday treats. I told her I wasn’t OK with that, since kids might bring in fruit with sulfites, or in syrups. I would be sending a special snack for my daughter anyway. Then, I got a letter saying that parents could only send in store-bought cookies for birthday snacks. Huh????? I’m not sure what to do. I will ask again about the Philly Swirls (even at the risk of annoying the teacher) - because it would really make my life easy. If that’s a no — I am wondering whether Whole Foods could prepare nut-free, vegan cookies. I know they have the ingredients. I imagine they could clean the mixer, baking sheet, and utensils. I bet they even could dedicate a few minutes in an oven without nuts. Even if I could get them to do all of this … would it be safe???
I wonder what next week will bring. I hope you and your children had easy first weeks of school and would welcome any stories about your first days — or suggestions on how to handle our school birthday snack dilemma.