Dear Little Kid...

I would have picked you up from school if I was your mom —with the skin on your upper body blistering up so much it looked like you were covered in bubble wrap. I saw your little self in the doorway to the school nurse's office covered in red bumps and wondered what dread disease I might be taking home with me today. I tried to keep you at arm's length as you hopped all around my office claiming it was "fleas."

Maybe it was fleas. Or maybe you are dreadfully allergic to something you ate. Or new laundry soap. How would YOU know? You are only 5.

My skin was crawling and I wanted to scratch some imaginary itches the whole time. And I really, really didn't want you touching me. But I remembered when I was a girl and I decided to suntan in a field of wild grasses by the sea -- and I ran screaming home to my mom covered in what looked like puffy red whip-marks all over me. (I don't sit on the grass anymore.) And my heart went out to you.

I must have told you a hundred times that the scale was not a toy. And please don't touch that. Or that! You hopped around so much it was like you had ants in your pants.

Hey...maybe you DID!

How could I expect you to hold still?

I named you "Itchy McScratchy" and told you I was going to frost you like a cake with hydrocortisone cream. You thought that was silly and giggled when the q-tip got you under the arms. Your poor little arms.

You leaned on me while we called your mom as I tried to enter a million data-points in the computer and simultaneously keep you from pulling all the shelves down. Then you had half yourself on my lap. Then all of you.

When your little brown arms went around my neck I stopped typing and held you--resigning myself to whatever pestilence I might catch.

I don't know if I would ever want to be a school nurse, but I am asking myself: what if I hadn't been there for you today?

I really wish your mom had come picked you up. I almost took you home with me!

Your student nurse.