Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Move along - nothing to see here

Seriously, I'm dead boring this week. Which is a good thing. Because I must say, I'm tired of the end-of-year crap, the Mother's Day crap and people being sick. This is one thing about Mother's Day: I love being appreciated. In fact, you could say I very much appreciate it. However, I feel most appreciated when I'm appreciated on my time. In other words, being appreciated at 10 a.m. on a weekday when I have to specifically ask time off from work so I can go be appreciated is kinda contrary to that purpose.

End of year: really, do I have to be there to celebrate my child reaching the end of the school year? I'm happy for them. I'm proud of them for somehow having survived another year in school without getting the snot beaten out of them, destroying their lives forever or otherwise getting into deep donkey doo. However, schools have yet to realize or care that very, very few families can afford anymore to have a single earner. Which means, again, asking for time off work to go to these parties, which the kids enjoy, but you still wind up standing in a corner with the other adults while the kids do their thing and don't really care if you're there or not. Woo hoo.

People being sick: can't do much about it. Still, I've noticed that there seem to be stages in parenting a sick kid.

1. Denial. He's not sick - it's allergies.

2. Dawning horror and guilt. Crap. It is a virus/bacterial infection/other infection! I'm a terrible parent for not realizing he was sick.

3. Action. Take temperatures, make kid comfortable, maybe take kid to the doctor.

4. Relief. The doctor tells me to give him Motrin and make him rest while feeding him juice and soda and popsicles.

5. Annoyance. Kids who have been prevented from moving all day and whose fever has been managed with Motrin then who have been encouraged to drink and/or eat juice, soda and ice pops are not so fun to hang out with. I'd rather be at work.

6. Anticipation. He's almost better. Tomorrow everything will be back to normal. Yay!

7. Relapse. Ugh, the kid is still sick. Seriously??

8. Closure. Finally, everyone is back to work, back to school, sleeping and eating normally and no longer downing sugary drinks and ice pops like they're going out of style.

Then kid #2 (if you have one; if you don't, it's got to be you or your spouse) gets it. Repeat the cycle.

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