Feb 02 2009
Everyone is sick!
Last night, when Garrett (12) came in from playing, he claimed sickness the moment he came home. Being the smart mom that I am, I could see right through him! For the past several weeks he has claimed sickness on Sunday evening to get out of school Monday morning.
The problem with school is he doesn’t like his off-season athletics, because when football is over he has to lift weights (lots of weights) and run laps (lots of laps) and on top of it, he has to be at school at 7:20am (actual classes do not start until 8am) and honestly, I am tired of the whole thing myself.
So, when he came home claiming sickness I could see through his act. We got through the night still intact and I tried to reason with him about his problems in athletics but he insisted that he wasn’t faking.
I sent him off to bed.
Then Tim (22) began coughing and was progressively feeling worse as the evening wore on. I was too…. So, Tim and I were both wishing that we had our inhalers (we ran out of the medicine and really need to get refills!)
This morning at 6:28 (2 minutes before my alarm was scheduled to go off) I open my eyes to Garrett standing over me claiming that he has thrown up.
I don’t believe it. I closed my eyes for a moment trying to gather my thoughts. For good measure he adds that he needs to brush his teeth to get the taste out of his mouth.
I still don’t believe it.
He crawls into bed with me and I roll over towards him and explain that I know that he is just trying to get out of going to school. I know that he hates athletics and getting up so early. And, I know that he is faking this.
He immediately puts on the water works. This tugs at my heart strings which means that my son is an awesome actor! At least we have a career goal!
But I am going to be strong. I think back on last week when Garrett and a friend of his were having a conversation about how well it works to get your way if you cry. Hmmm… don’t know what they were thinking having that conversation with me present! So, I am going to be firm! I tell him to knock off the crying because honestly… I haven’t even washed the sleep out of my eyes yet! I tell him that I don’t believe him and the reason I don’t believe him is because he has done this every week for the past month!
We argue the point for a bit and I hear Tim coughing in his sleep. Then I start coughing which triggers Garrett’s coughing and then the dog starts barking because we have woke him up with all the coughing!
I give up and get up and Garrett and I go into the living room. He lays down on the couch snuggled under the blankets and I begin having second thoughts.
I still don’t believe he has thrown up!
So, finally, I let him stay home… Not because I believe he has thrown up but because I do begin to believe that he isn’t feeling well.
By late this afternoon he took a long nap on the couch (which he never left the entire day) and by this evening he had 101.3 fever.
I still don’t believe that he threw up this morning, but I guess I have to believe he is really sick.
My chest is still tight and Tim is still coughing. This is going to be an interesting week!
