I Can't Go to School - I'm Sick. Cough Cough

Can't go to school if your sick - right? So, if you don't want to go to school, you tell your mother that you're sick. Instant day off. Right? Hah!

Monday morning blues around here. No one wanted to get up (myself included, but I did.)

The first thing Harry said was "I'm not going to school today."

I informed him he was - and that he didn't have to get up for another twenty minutes.

He then told me his stomach hurt.

Hmmm. That's interesting.

Ger more rest I told him and then we'll see.

Twenty minutes later - time for everyone to get up. Pippi declared she was on strike and refused to move from her bed. Harry in the meantime insisted his stomach hurt. I told him to get up and eat something and then we'd see. He agreed and got dressed and came downstairs. He crawled around - insisting that when he stood his stomach hurt. He crawled down the steps head first (yeah, there's a kid who doesn't feel well). He slithered into the kitchen on his belly. He got in his chair and ate a bowl of oatmeal. He slithered over to the cupboard and got out more oatmeal. I made him a second bowl of oatmeal. He slithered around again for a third. At which point I informed him he was going to school.

"What!?"

"If you're well enough to eat three bowls of oatmeal, you can go to school. Even if you are crawling around on the floor."

So, resigned to his fate, he got ready for school.

In the meantime, Pippi called off her strike and got up and dressed too. And eventually they went to school.

But it's always tricky when one of them says they don't feel well. Are they really sick, or do they just not feel like showing up in class today? If they have a fever or if they throw up, the decision has been made, but what about that general yuckiness? Usually, I can tell if my kids are sick. They don't act like themselves. They are quiet and pale and lethargic. But I'm always worried about making that wrong call. I don't want to send them to school sick. But I certainly don't want to get snookered into letting them stay home when they can be at school.

And I'm left wondering what tomorrow's ailment will be. Perhaps sneezles and wheezles?

Sneezles
by A.A. Milne

Christopher Robin had wheezles and sneezles
They bundled him into his bed.
They gave him what goes with cold in the nose,
And some more for cold in the head.
They wondered if wheezles could turn into measles,
If sneezles would turn into mumps;
They examined his chest for a rash, and the rest
Of his body for swelling and lumps.
They sent for some doctors in sneezles and wheezles
To tell them what ought to be done.
All sorts and conditions of famous physicians
Came hurrying round at a run.
They all made a note of state of his throat,
They asked if he suffered from thirst;
They asked if the sneezles came after the wheezles,
Or if the first sneezles came first.
They say “If you teasle a sneezle or wheezle,
A measle may easily grow.
But humour or pleazle the wheezle or snezle,
The measle will certainly go.”

They expounded the reazles for sneezles and wheezles,
The manner of measles when new.
They said, “If he freezles in draughts and in breezles,
The PHTHEEZLES may even ensue.”

Christopher Robin got up in the morning,
The sneezles had vanished away.
And the look of his eye seemed to say to the sky,
“Now, how to amuse them today? ”