The Cycle of Sick

First, it was Ane.

She spiked a fever on Friday night that was bad. 103 degrees bad. And she wasn’t much better Saturday morning. But by Friday night, the Webmaster had already called Nana and Papa, who were planning on visiting on Saturday, and said, “Don’t come.”

Saturday came and went. I ran errands and took Tad with me to get him out of the house. Ane wasn’t much better than she had been the night before, except for her doses of Tylenol and ibuprofen. And we called Friend and Doc and told them not to plan on coming over on Sunday night.

The plan was that Tad would go to church on Sunday with the Webmaster, and I would stay home with Ane. Except that when Sunday morning came, Tad had spiked a fever as well.

Well, that was that. Out came the meds, the DVDs and the apple juice. Oh, and the attendance line phone numbers to each of the kids’ schools, because nobody is going to school today.

On the up side, Ane’s fever finally broke on Sunday afternoon. So, if she can stay fever-free all day today, then she can go back to school on Tuesday. But Tad’s about 36 hours behind her, so I’m thinking that if he follows the same pattern, then he won’t be back in school until Wednesday, tops.

And I am continually washing my hands and doing all that I can to keep from catching anything.

This is Ane’s second missed day of school this year, but she just seems to be catching stuff more easily than she ever did at preschool. I commented as much to a fellow mom that I ran into while shopping on Saturday. She has two older girls, as well as one in Ane’s grade, and she replied, “The first year of public school is always bad. It’s just like sitting in a petri dish.”

I guess I don’t remember my kindergarten year being like that, but maybe Grandma can set me straight. I certainly remember picking stuff up there (head lice, for example), but I don’t recall being sick often. That came later, when I was constantly down with tonsillitis or strep throat.

Of course, now that Ane feels better, she wants to be back in school TODAY. I hated having to tell her that she needed to be fever-free for 24 hours before going back. I emailed her teacher to let her know, and Ane asked, “Will they cancel school because I’m not there?”

Nope, sorry, kiddo. I understand her devotion to school, but they want her back only when she’s completely well.

And I really hope Tad gets there soon.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 1:03 am and is filed under Children, School Days.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed and Both comments and pings are currently closed.