Should I Stay or Should I Go?
I faced my first real decision of Abbie’s preschool career: Should I send her to school sick today? Her school sent her home sick on Monday with a fever and bad cough. She seemed okay when she returned home except for the snot flowing from her nose. Still, this led to a full night of worrying about Abbie’s condition for the next day. Will her mood be good enough to go back to school? Will Abbie’s fever return? Will the snot on her face gross out her teachers and make them send her right back home?
My worrying went for naught as a winter storm pounded Des Moines with snow and ice that night. By morning, the roads were a mess, the schools were closed, and only the most essential of personnel were required to report for their jobs.* That gave me a reprieve to watch her for a day to see how she was doing.
She was cranky. My first instinct when I woke up** was to keep her home regardless of the weather, and listening to her whine through the afternoon confirmed my instinct. Her mood improved throughout the day, but when I put her to bed I still assumed she’d stay home the next day.
When I woke her this morning, she was irritable and uncooperative. In other words, her attitude was completely normal. I helped dress her and set her down to eat breakfast. She ate well enough, and went about her morning as normal except for the periodic sniffling.
I shrugged, assumed that preschool would do her good, and readied her for school. As I loaded her on the bus, I hoped that her school wouldn’t call me again in an hour demanding that I pick her up and questioning my sanity for sending such an obviously ill girl to school.
The call never came, and Abbie returned home on the bus as normal. In her backpack was a note from the school explaining that they had an unusually high number of students and faculty stay home sick on Monday. No kidding.
* I.e. mommy.
** Besides scratching.
My worrying went for naught as a winter storm pounded Des Moines with snow and ice that night. By morning, the roads were a mess, the schools were closed, and only the most essential of personnel were required to report for their jobs.* That gave me a reprieve to watch her for a day to see how she was doing.
She was cranky. My first instinct when I woke up** was to keep her home regardless of the weather, and listening to her whine through the afternoon confirmed my instinct. Her mood improved throughout the day, but when I put her to bed I still assumed she’d stay home the next day.
When I woke her this morning, she was irritable and uncooperative. In other words, her attitude was completely normal. I helped dress her and set her down to eat breakfast. She ate well enough, and went about her morning as normal except for the periodic sniffling.
I shrugged, assumed that preschool would do her good, and readied her for school. As I loaded her on the bus, I hoped that her school wouldn’t call me again in an hour demanding that I pick her up and questioning my sanity for sending such an obviously ill girl to school.
The call never came, and Abbie returned home on the bus as normal. In her backpack was a note from the school explaining that they had an unusually high number of students and faculty stay home sick on Monday. No kidding.
* I.e. mommy.
** Besides scratching.
posted by Matt at
11:20 PM
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