Sick???

It was one of those mornings when I am glad that my neighbors homes are not super close to mine, and I also find myself hoping that they are hard of hearing. This is so they cannot see or hear me as I drag my screeching offspring out of the house, into the van and off to school. At this point, I do not honestly know if Kate is genuinely just sick, or was sick but now is technically healthy except that she is worrying herself into a state resembling sick again. After seeming pretty fine all day and evening yesterday, and after passing a pretty normal night (for Kate that means that she did go to bed without too much protest, but appeared by my side sometime in the night and slept beside me on a mattress that I set up for her yesterday on the floor - the being puked upon incident from a couple days is still burned in my brain, and so I felt the need to supply her with a separate sleeping area just in case) Kate got up this morning and started THINKING. By thinking I mean the wheels in her mind started turning and she started mentally reviewing her days options. She announced that she wanted to go to school because today is "buddy day" meaning they spend time with their grade 6 counterparts, which she enjoys I guess. But moments later she reappeared wailing that she had no pants to wear...which I took as a good sign, at least in terms of her physical health, because the nothing to wear ploy is a fairly regular routine and usually she gets over it quickly. Which she did. But then her orange juice tasted funny. And her crumpet was soggy (well it was, I think they had freezer burn and just wouldn't toast properly, but I had run out of bread and an old pack of crumpets was all I come with from the freezer on short notice). And breakfast after that just fell apart. Then of course her stomach hurt again - well, maybe it did, but was it due to the last traces of the flu, or was it because she was totally stressing herself out about going back to school? I may never know the answer to that...regardless, I made a command decision that she was going to school if it killed me, and resolved to ignore the tears and the wailing and the screaming, threw some food in her lunch bag, dragged a brush through her hair, shoved shoes on her feet, packed her into the van and took her to school. Her poor sisters by now were also stressed out, because Elizabeth really hates to be late, and Emily just hates the sounds of battle. Anyway, we made it just in time, and I walked in behind the girls to give Kate and Em's teacher a heads up, and she took over from that point, prying Kate off of me and steering her off to the classroom, still sobbing. I know she will do everything in her power to keep Kate at school, so unless Kate actually barfs, I don't expect to hear my phone ring. If it does, and I have to go and get her, then I guess I made the meanest mommies ever top ten list for today anyway. Which kind of sucks, but I was willing to take my chances anyway.