Sick and tired.

I'm not a fan of sick children, especially during the school year. My small boy likes to time his sicknesses with an already established 3-day weekend or other school holiday. In fact, all last week he was "not feeling well" in anticipation of getting the Friday off before Columbus Day weekend. I headed that one off though and he completed the week of school and went through the weekend feeling fine until about mid-day Monday. That's when he started complaining again.

What they don't realize is that I can see the patterns that they present and I know when they are truly sick, but I won't reveal that here in case they read this and figure out my secrets. In most cases they are just tired or hungry or maybe ate too much the night before and may be feeling a bit off but are not really sick. So yesterday morning ended with me pointing this out to the young lad and yelling at him to "go back to bed if you're sick" at which point he grabbed his backpack and stormed off to school, with no breakfast and no lunch money.

Now I start to feel bad (a little) because he may actually be sick. If he just tells the school nurse that he's thrown up then they make me come get him. They are not like me, I require proof. Either bring me a handful of vomit or let me see it before you flush, otherwise I don't believe them. It's too easy to say you puked and stagger into the doorway like you're dragging a car behind you.

Well, he sucked it up for the day but I still think he had something to prove. At some point he convinced himself he was sick and needed to get out of something so he blew off a jazz band concert at the book fair and football practice later. But what do you know, he was feeling well enough at dinner to eat two huge helpings of food. I guess this one was a tie, a small victory for each of us. I sent him to school and he skipped jazz band. Now the sickness should be over for a while, at least until Thanksgiving break.