Patriotic Teddy

Two days ago, Teddy went to school looking very patriotic. He was, quite literally, red, white and blue:

The red is quite obvious Blue was on his hands, so you can see a bit peeking through around the drill.

We had an appointment 30 minutes away to pick up his new braces, shoes and compression shorts and shirt. He was agreeable for that and downright excited when he got to try out adapted bicycles (more on that when it arrives ... he got approved today!). But when we got in the car to head home, the screaming started.

And it continued for about 20 minutes of tired, crabby Teddy who wanted nothing to do with any snack or drink I offered him. When he found AJ's zipper pockets, he finally settled down. That's because he was happily coloring ... himself. He colored his hands blue and his face (and half the back of his head) red. He even managed to color inside his ear.

Needless to say, the screaming resumed when I pulled off the highway to take away all the markers. As soon as we got home, I put him down for a nap and spent a good 10 minutes picking up all the markers, crayons and other drawing utensils from my car. Amazingly, Teddy fell asleep right away. Apparently the combination of the very tail end of a cold and ear infections in both ears and a lack of sleep for the last week finally caught up with him enough to take a mid-day siesta (as opposed to his stylish look of black bags under his eyes this past weekend).

I woke him up 25 minutes before his bus arrived and proceeded to change him out of his new compression clothes (since his classroom would be in the 80s that day), which meant completely undressing and redressing him, including his braces and shoes. I also had to change him and write a quick note to update his teacher on those two ear infections. Oh, and I had to feed him lunch, which was the most challenging aspect because it's hard to feed a child who's screaming because he's still waking up.

We finished his lunch with me chasing his shirtless self around around our driveway, holding bites of food in one of my hands and a Kleenex in the other. When the bus turned onto our road, I did one last nose wipe and pulled his shirt on him.

Needless to say, that 25 minutes did not include any time for washing the marker off him. So that is why Teddy went to school wearing red, white and blue. (He's my child, so he's inherently pasty white.)
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