Taking a Sick Day

Taking a sick day sure means something completely different in a house full of kids. It requires a certain Mommy finesse I don't think I've quite mastered just yet. Quarantines are in effect, with the sick child banished to his/her room--and nobody is allowed to touch the baby except me. I make my rounds like a nurse in a hospital, washing my hands in-between patient visits. Medicines are administered as needed, via Dr. Mom's orders. It's kind of exciting, in a really sad and demented way...

Rob woke up on Monday morning to take the kids to school for me. He does that quite frequently on his days off to allow me and Ellie to sleep in. Love that man. Aurora woke up with her usual morning huff and decided she was going to give her Daddy a hard time. Now, this would alarm many other people, but not us. She's like that just about every morning. And, just about every morning, she wakes up saying she doesn't feel well. She's not hungry and she doesn't want to brush her hair and she doesn't want to get dressed--and she doesn't want to be awake, for that matter! Talk about the girl who cried wolf. With great patience, Rob got the kids dressed and fed and off to school.

When he got home from dropping them off, he came upstairs and crawled back into bed with me and the baby. We were going to enjoy a lazy morning together. That is, until the phone rang. It was the kid's elementary school. Aurora had already been sent to the nurse's office. Fifteen minutes into the school day and I was going to pick my daughter up. Apparently, she had a fever. Rob would not have been able to detect this. I think only Mommies have that keen wrist thermometer. Remember back to what I said about her morning rituals, though? She wakes up snarling most mornings. How was Daddy supposed to know she was that sick? I brought her home and she went back to bed--quite gratefully, I might add.

Then, last night her fever spiked above 103° F. She was miserable! I gave her tylenol and it broke the fever, but she was still pretty worn out. She did finally get a good night's sleep, which is more than I can say for her brother. Ryan came into our room sometime in the middle of the night complaining about his ear hurting. He rarely ever complains about things in the middle of the night, so we took him seriously, giving him some pain medicine and trying to get him comfortable. He did, eventually, go back to sleep.

When we all woke up this morning, both older kids were still complaining about their ailments. I made the executive decision to keep them home from school today to get some rest. I'm still not sure if Ryan has an ear infection. He doesn't have a temperature and he's acting like his normal self. We'll see how he does tonight. If neither of the kids feel better by morning, we're off to the doctor's office.

The worst part of all this: Tomorrow is Aurora's birthday. The school requires we keep the kids home until they have been fever-free for at least 24 hours. Because her fever is still lingering, she has to miss out on her in-class cupcake party. We're going to try to make the best of it for her tomorrow, though. It's awful being sick on your birthday--whether you're a kid or an adult!

While typing this post, I finally got the baby to sleep. Time to make my rounds!