I Don’ Wanna Go To School Today….

There outta be a law.

When you’re sick, I mean, snotty and lightheaded and tired and woozy sick, some sort of machine should scan you, declare you ‘OFFICIALLY SICK’, and let you stay home without your boss caring and your teachers noting you absent. You should receive a visitor bearing gifts of chicken soup, Sudafed, Kleenex, Vernors ginger ale, and three movies of your choosing from the local video store. The day should expand for you, some trippy time-warp thang, and give you 12 extra hours in which to sleep and sweat. A cold should last no longer than 24 hours. Then you should feel like Superman.

I knew it was coming, and yet I was surprised when I woke up today with my throat all croaky and runny. When Girl-child woke up, the first words out of her mouth were, “My voice is gravely. I wanna stay home from school.” This coming on the heels of her hand-washing germ-phobia. This coming after the ‘Talking Doctor’ said, “Your body needs the germs so it doesn’t get sick later, and when you do get sick your body’s making itself well and you get to stay home from school.” Urgh. This coming exactly one week after she was ‘sick’ and was really just scared to go to the big-kid school.

So I made her go to school. And her brother who sneezed his head off this morning. And me leaking everywhere. I said, “Get through today and tomorrow, and then we’ll see.” As much as I’d love to stay home, I have too much to do. As much as I’d love to stay home with the kids and baby them, school just started, and a sniffle doesn’t qualify as a home day. We’ll all get sicker. We always do. We’ll wait until we’re REALLY sick. And then I’ll pop out and buy soup, and Sudafed, and Kleenex, and Vernors, and three movies each. And we’ll sleep, and mope, and sneeze and cough and wipe. Maybe after that, we’ll feel like Superman.