Fadeout takes focus away from another element?

Fadeout takes focus away from another element?

Gidday

I have a textarea in a form, all wrapped in a div.

Below that div I have a blank status div, which I fill with html for status updates from php.  i then fade the status div out:

$("#status").html("Please type in your message.").show().fadeOut(5000);

Problem is that I cannot click inside the textarea in the form above until the fadeout animation has completed.

I tried it with a hide(5000) instead of a fadeOut, and I am able to click in the textarea no problem.

Any ideas of how to get around this?

Thanks for your time and help.