Labelling

Why don't children come with better labelling?

"Just a virus."
"Pneumonia."
"Common Cold."
"Hand, foot and mouth disease."
"Sore neck from fall from monkey bars. Nothing serious."
"Sore neck from fall from monkey bars masking sore muscles from other illness. Don't send me to school because that Motrin you gave me for my sore muscles is going to mask my outrageously high fever until it's too late for you to make an appointment to see my doctor."

I was caught by that last one today. I'm not a bad parent. She WANTED to go to school. Seriously, it's not like I'm doing something so exciting during the day that I would ship her off to school so I could keep my plans. This was surely an issue when I was working full time. "I stayed home with her last week when she had that ear infection, can you please pick her up for this throwing up thing?" was quite a common exchange between my husband and I in those days.

I thought that having an able-bodied, well spoken (quite!) 5 year old would eliminate the guessing game and she could more readily tell me what the issue was. However, now there are other factors in play, like "Is today a gym day?," "Is Emma riding with us this morning?" and "We are celebrating Hallie's birthday today at school." would cause her to throw caution to the wind and go to school even if she felt her head were going to explode. Yes, cupcakes are a big draw, even if you are going to throw them up 10 minutes later.

All I know is that I have been called on 2 consecutive days to pick my daughter up from school. The first day they said her neck was sore and that she was rubbing it - my response "Could you ask her if she wants to come home?" When I got there, she was seemed okay, really just sore from a friend-assisted head-plant off the monkey bars a day earlier. She played fine, we even hit the playground, and yes, the monkey bars a little later the same day.

The next day, a call to my husband, not me...a sign that my wanting to consult my daughter on her health was not a wise parenting decision? This time I get to school and she looks like the walking dead...pasty, shivering, raspy breath...oh and a fever of 103.6. Frankly, I am surprised they even let me take her home at all considering my bad parenting. Did I mention that I sent her in with a note practically providing full disclosure on my premediated sending her to school ill (it mentioned that I had given her motrin for the "sore neck" that morning.

I am a bad, bad parent. My sick child is on the couch now, writing me love notes. Apparently she hasn't noticed my deficient parenting skills. Phew!