Redefining Sick

I just have to brag that this morning I was soooo on top of things. Everyone was up and ready to go and we were at school and work on time. Even with all the extras for a Monday. Megan had to bring her washed nappy stuff with her, Joshua has a drawing notebook that he likes to keep in his backpack for after care and Daniel had picked out some food to bring to school for the food drive the school was holding to celebrate the National Day of Service. I had purchased some canned goods, but also wanted to bring in some crackers or some other type of non-perishable food item that Daniel could physically carry into the building and put in the food box. Publix puts many sale items in the front of the store, so I gave Daniel the option between purchasing boxes of crackers or purchasing cereal since they were in bins right beside each other. He went for the cereal and was pretty proud of his decision. Funny though, it was Apple Jacks, which is a cereal we don't give the kids because of our food sensitivity issue, but later that night, I found out he made the choice for Apple Jacks because there was a Mickey Mouse on the box.

So, off we were in all of our separate directions, and I made it to work early due to the lack of traffic for the MLK holiday. I had an 8-8:30am meeting and was just about to get to work on another project when I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. It was the health aide from the kids' school telling me to come get Megan. Megan's teacher told the health aide that Megan had a temperature of 99.0. Today being a holiday, I didn't really have too much of an issue with leaving work to get Megan. I got to the school and the health aide was so apologetic about not following up and taking the temperature herself, because Megan's temperature was just fine, Megan's only complaint was that she was sad and tired. I talked gently with the health aide and we discussed what actually warrants a phone call to come home. I think the health aid felt a little foolish when I asked Megan what was the matter and Megan said, "Lindsey and Emma weren't sharing the blocks and it made me cry too hard and I couldn't stop, so I want to go take a nap." I nicely asked the health aid if (as long as it doesn't contradict with the school's policy - which I was silently betting to myself that they don't have one), I'd like for the kids to have a chance to settle down before getting their temps taken. Of course she's going to be warmer if she's just been crying her eyes out being upset about the girls in her class, not to mention it's the first morning of waking up with Daddy gone after having Daddy home for part of the weekend. I didn't want to be a know-it-all, but seriously, 99.0 is not a fever in my mind for my normal healthy kids, especially if Megan's got 2 layers of clothes on and the heat is cranked up because it's below 70 degrees outside and her temp is being taken under her arm. Megan gets a certain look to her when she's sick and when I walked into that school, I knew she wasn't sick.

We went to Einstein's and got some bagels and talked about the mean girls. And I think another issue is that when Daddy goes to work, he goes away. We had to talk about the fact that Mommy isn't going away. I think it makes her nervous to have me working now, too. She's a very nervous Nellie. So we had a special Mommy and Megan breakfast and now she's napping on the couch and when she wakes up, we'll go buy her some much-needed new shoes.