I know your not supposed to compare you kids, but it sure is fun sometimes to see how different God can make people even with the same genetic make-up. Ainsley and Hudson both going to the same school has highlighted these differences lately.
Our little first-born, rule-follower has NEVER in her entire school career gone to the nurses office. She has come home from school two times, ones in first grade and once in second actually crying because she was so sick but wouldn't tell her teacher because she was too freaked out to go through the trauma of being sent out of the room to go to the office and health room.
Our little second-born adventure seeker has managed to make his way to the nurses office twice already in 6 weeks of half-day school. The first time he evidently witnessed another child getting to get an ice pack because he had a headache. So the very next day Hudson convinced his teacher he needed to go get a ice pack. When he told me about it he explained that he did have a headache, "remember, back when I got my tonsils out." Yes sweetie, but that was in August. His second time he saw that someone else got a neon yellow band-aid and he thought that was cool. So he picked out one of the numerous wounds on his leg that are always around and suddenly needed a band-aid for it. What is especially funny about that is he wouldn't actually put it on the abrasion, he just wanted the band-aid. Ainsley has discovered, and shared the information with Hudson, that band-aids do not actually do anything to help the pain of a wound, and eventually inflict more pain when the band-aid must be removed. Consequently, they both would rather let blood gush out of a cut for hours rather than apply a band-aid.
Camden is not yet capable of understanding of this reasoning and would love to have his entire body covered in band-aids at all times. The problem with this is he is super sensitive to the adhesive in band-aids, so a week after the sore has healed he still has huge red marks where the band-aid was stuck. Figures doesn't it?
I drop Hudson off at school every afternoon. He recently revealed to me his little routine when he goes into the building. It turns out rather than go directly into his classroom, my little adventurer heads down the hall, then the wrong direction to take a stroll through the cafeteria. His drop off time is between the first and second lunch times so there aren't any kids in there yet, but he wanders through to see what is going on in there, see what is for hot lunch, and sometimes talk to the lunch lady. He said he also looks down the long hall to look for Ainsley, and then sometimes walks through the library. Ainsley would go directly from point A to point B, Hudson is on his own little self-guided school tour.
Ainsley has had hot lunch at school exactly one time, in kindergarten. She vowed she would rather not eat than ever have hot lunch again. It is gross, and even worse, it takes too long to get so you don't get to chat at the table as long or go to recess as early. The first long Wednesday when Hudson got to eat at school he of course wanted to try hot lunch. He of course has asked for it every time since. I've explained that he can have it every once in a while, but I'm not paying $2 routinely for him to eat a sandwich on white bread and chocolate milk. Fortunately he ran his new little plan by me before actually executing it (I hope). He told me that no one would notice if he just went and got a chocolate milk, and he thinks it is okay to just go and get one because it is "just like getting a drink out of the drinking fountain." Uhhh... no honey, you have to pay for the milk and your not having chocolate milk. It was like talking to a wall for a little while to try and convince him he couldn't go and just help himself to milk. He honestly couldn't quite grasp that it would be stealing to do so.
Ainsley lost a tooth at school once and it was a traumatic event. So traumatic that it turns out the tooth fairy will leave you $2 for a tooth that falls out at school rather than the $1 that you get for a tooth lost at home. Hudson has his first wiggly tooth, and our little capitalist-attention seeker has decided that he is ONLY going to wiggle it at school so it will fall out there where all his friends will see and he will get more money. Can't argue with that logic!
It is so fun to watch kids grow-up.
