1 Mother 2 Another

Maddie’s preschool is winding down
with a variety of fun activities, including a carnival-like field
day today. The entire morning Maddie’s class gets to spend
the time outside, with bounce houses and face painters and splash
parks and more. Then they head inside for lunch and a movie to
finish off the day.


Unfortunately, Maddie is not a part of it.

Maddie woke up in the wee hours of Tuesday
morning with a bad headache and a fever. She’s been
relatively fine most of the time, though the fever stubbornly
refuses to leave her, even with a steady dose of ibuprofin and
acetaminophen. She has the occasional cough, though, which leads me
to think that she’s got the viral croup that’s been
running rampant through her class.


Mid-afternoon on Tuesday I broke the bad news to Maddie – no
field day for her, since even if she were miraculously better by
morning she still needs 24 hours fever-free before she’s no
longer contagious. My child was, as you can imagine, devastated.


These are the moments I wish I were just that much more selfish,
and could dose my child up on fever suppressors and send her off to
school, contagiousness and other people’s kids be damned. But
I can’t in good conscious do that, mostly because I know how
exhausting it is to be up all night with a sick kid and
wouldn’t wish that on anyone. So I take away the best school
day of the entire year, and make my child miss out, for something
she doesn’t really understand.


I’ve promised her a special quiet day, just the two of us,
with Gamma generously offering to take Cora for the day. If
Maddie’s up to it we’ll go someplace kid-free and
relatively low-key and have some quality time together, and
hopefully that will make up for the loss of the cotton candy and
face painting. She’s trying to be a brave soldier, but she
was having a hard time suppressing the tears last night and I felt
like Super Mean Mommy.


Sometimes it’s hard being the good citizen.