Where the $#@% is Florence Nightingale When You Need Her?

As a Mom I am a real idiot when it comes to my kids being sick. I never know when to send them to school and when to keep them home. I am pretty good with the obvious signs. High fever…free pass to stay home. If they throw up as they are walking out of the door for school…go get back in bed. If they are covered in oozing scabs…they can stay home (thankfully we haven’t had to deal with that…yet). It’s the subtle sickness that I have problems with.

Einstein had been home from school the first part of the week. It was quite apparent he wasn’t up to going to school by the amount of time and frequency of his visits to the bathroom. I got that one. Good Mom.

Then today…ugh.

I took Big J to the Doctor yesterday for his 11 yr old well check and he got 2 shots, one was a tetanus shot. I know how much they hurt and how you might feel a little yucky after getting one of those. So this morning when he said he didn’t feel like going to school I didn’t have a problem with him staying home. I think I am a little more tolerant about the kids staying home since they are doing so well in school. I think they have missed more school this year than ever. For most of the morning he just hung out on the couch watching TV, but I can tell he is feeling a little better because he feels like doing this now:

On the other hand Roo said she didn’t feel well this morning and I just figured it was sympathy sickness. You know the one “Why do I have to go to school if he gets to stay home?” Yeah we get that a LOT. So I told her she was fine and to hurry and get ready for school. Well about 10am I got a call from the school nurse. I was glad Big J was home so I didn’t have to load up the kidlets to go get her. The bad part is I was planning on staying in my jammies all day today so I had to put clothes on to go get her. Her teacher said she kept falling asleep in class and within a few minutes of being home I found her here:

And she is still there.

So how do you know they are really sick. None of them are running a fever or show any other sign of being sick other than being achy and just not feeling well.

And it’s not just them. I had to deal with this much more than usual today:

Which has led to spending time doing this:

I even found him doing this:

It is very unusual for him to go and just get in bed and lay down. I knew it was serious when he had taken his shoes off before he got in bed.

And the one I was expecting to have a bad day today is just fine. She is going from sick kid to sick kids sharing her own little brand of sunshine.

And why did I think she was going to have a bad day?

Because last night I had finally had enough and took these away:

And it was every bit as bad as I thought it would be. Wow the girl has got some lungs on her. But really, her 4th birthday is next month and it really is time for them to be gone. I have been waiting for her to give them up. Yep, that’s the laid back type of Mom I am, when they are ready it will happen. Well it worked pretty well with the other 4 kiddos. I didn’t in a million years think she would be this bad about her “suckies”. It was really sad watching her try to fall asleep last night, but I was strong. She just didn’t know how to relax and just fall asleep and then she came into my room this morning crying for one, sorry sweetie they are gone. I told her that I had thrown them away and she freaked out, so I told her I just put them in a safe place and she was a little better.

So how safe do you think Big Daddy’s dresser drawer is?

And no I am not going to throw them away. They have been a part of the family for a long time and I can’t just toss them in the trash!