Thursday, September 22, 2011

Nazi Mom

You know, during my 14 years experience as a Mom, I've developed a near perfect sense as to when my kids are sick, and when they're just a little under the weather. I can tell you if a kid has the flu or if they just ate something that didn't sit right. I can tell you if they have a cold, allergies or just a sore throat. I can tell you by their cry alone, without even seeing them mind you, if they're really hurt or just playing it up to get a sibling in trouble. A Dr., I'm not, but I've always been pretty confident that my sickness/crying detection skills were pretty accurate.

Yesterday, Paige woke up with an upset tummy. She didn't want to go to school. Last year, if you tried to MAKE Paige stay home, she wouldn't have. If she were DYING FROM MALARIA, she would have gone to school. This year, she's kind of been playing the sick card a lot, and I think it has something to do with her....um....Aunt Flo....threatening to make her premiere introduction.

Anyway, trying to appease my "sick" 12 year old drama queen, I took her temperature, pressed on her belly, asked her the typical sick questions (where does it hurt, are you nauseous....). Additional interrogating revealed that she bought school lunch yesterday AGAINST MY INSTRUCTIONS. Final "Mom Diagnosis" was that she was probably suffering some sort of bodily crap-food rejection. I told her that if she was nauseous, she would probably feel better once she got the up-chucking done. 10 minutes later, she threw up. I told her she still had to go to school. (Yeah, did you read the title of this post?)

Between the 15 minutes after she threw up and when I had to leave, she was fine. I told Coleton to call me if she threw up again (since I can't always trust the words from a "sick" kid's mouth). 5 minutes after I left...Coleton called me. I talked to Paige, who thought she was dying. I told her that she was going to be OK in about 20 minutes, and to try to go to school. (Again, refer to the post title). I called her back 10 minutes later, and she still claimed to be ill. I thought, "maybe I was wrong?", so I let her stay home.

It just so happened that Elmo took an 1/2 day yesterday, and got home around 9:30 Upon entering the house, he found Paige, who as you may recall was on her death bed, eating a big bowl of cereal and playing Wii. He said she looked happy and as healthy as any kid ever did. He continued to update me throughout the day with healthy reports of our once dying daughter.

I'm so glad she's going to be OK.

There are a few lessons learned:
1. My inner mom sickness skills are still 100% accurate and I should listen to them. Even if it makes me appear to be Nazi Mom.
2. One should not disobey their mother and buy school lunch when they're told not to.

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