My Mom never let me get away with fake sick days as a kid. I always thought it was because she was a nurse and saw right through the times I was faking it. Then I thought, well, she just wanted me to get a good education. Now I see it’s all pretty simple – being home with a sick kid sucks.
Let me of course toss out the usual caveats of loving my kid and feeling awful when he’s ill and I’d do anything to take away the cough, puking, etc., blah, blah, blah.
And I’ll also toss out there that sick days probably get a bit easier (minus the puke and whatnot) when the kids are tweens and teens. At least then they hunker down by the tube or the video games and, at that age, maybe the folks don’t feel as guilty with a day of television.
But between the ages of, well, a day and at least 8 years old, I’m taking odds that most everyone would rather put in a day at the plant than serving time with a sick youngster. In my experience, anyway, sick kids of a certain age are just bad patients. They feel like crud, they can’t play hard, can’t really go outside and can’t do what the rest of us do – see above – because, well, they’re kids.
Sick day with my youngest this week was spent in 20- to 30-minute increments jumping between some TV, some solo play, Cariboo, some mild play (a slow motion light saber fight and shorter game of Tickle Monster), Chutes and Ladders, some more mild play (cut short by a coughing fit), a trip to the doctors/pharmacy/video story, lunch, mild play and on and on and on. Eventually, his brother came home and, when they weren’t fighting, they amused each other a bit more than I could.
In the end, the sun came down, the day ended and we all lived to fight another day. Don’t tell my kids, but damnit, I hope it’s a work day.
