Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-05-31 - 9:21 a.m.

Confessions

I have two sick kids today.

They're not very sick. Well, kind of sick. A little sick. I don't know. I want them to go to school.

That's bad, isn't it? I want my sick kids to go to school. Truthfully, I would like to have a life that would allow me to keep them home, to bring them 7-up and rental movies and extra afghans. And hell, while I'm using the watercolors here, let's paint in time for me to cut out a pattern and work on making a dress, in my immaculate house, while keeping a watchful motherly eye on my sick children.

Ptui.

The reality, of course, is that I have to go to work, and that would mean dragging two sick kids with me, and it's going to be over 100 degrees again today and the air conditioning in my car doesn't work. I have to be at the hospital with my Dad, too, and I can't take the kids there, and I can't ask someone to watch them if they're sick, so I'd end up in the who-needs-me-more dilemma again. I haven't GOT any friggin' 7-up, somebody took the afghans out to the car and spilled soda on them, and I'm blacklisted at every movie rental place in town.

Oh, and did I mention that I hate whiny kids?

When they're really sick, they shut up. Then I feel bad. When Youngest Child had strep throat, she didn't even peep. Didn't want anything, didn't say anything. I can take care of a kid like that.

But when they have colds, they like to whimper. And I don't know when it happened, but hearing my children whimper, which at one early point would make milk shoot out of my body across the room, now makes blood shoot out of my ears. Especially since I know most of it is for my benefit, and that they will become perfectly normal children after I push them out of the car at school.

Oldest child likes school a lot. She wants to go, even though she has a sore throat. She's very Type A and takes her education seriously. Also, her teacher gives candy.

Youngest child would find any excuse NOT to go, except that she knows she will have make-up work which she hates, and she knows that I will not take a child that was "too sick to go to school" swimming in the afternoon.

When Oldest Child started kindergarten, I remember being appalled at how many sick kids were in the classroom every day. I volunteered, and that class sounded like a TB ward half the time. A kid would wipe his snotty nose with his hand and then grab a crayon from the communal basket. Handwashing was never encouraged ("They play in the water") and tissues were available but seldom used ("That's why God gave me sleeves.") Why the hell weren't these kids HOME, instead of in school sharing their viral largesse with the rest of the world?

Well, slap me stupid, I guess Mama musta had other things to do.

I'm a bad mother this morning. I got the Triaminic down off the top shelf and dosed them both and packed them off to school. Now I'm eyeing my pager nervously - it's the bearer of bad tidings these days - and feeling like I ought to go pick them up wearing a gold lame halter top, tight capris and a pair of stilettos. I'm obviously a mother with different priorities than kirch, kinder, and kuchen. AArgggh - I'm TrashMama. Fix me a martini, will you?

So when your kids come home sick in a few days, you know who to blame. Me, TrashMama, who sent sick kids to school today.

I really ought to get my nails done, don't you think?

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