The Upside to Family Fevers

Amanda came down with a fever yesterday afternoon. She was laying around more than usual, but I still hadn't clued in. Of course once it was time to head out the door to a singing commitment, she started crying uncontrollably saying she'd been cold all afternoon, and that her head was hurting. I immediately knew what was wrong, and the thermometer only confirmed it. She had a fever.

Later that evening, Megan came over to me. She said she had a secret to tell me (since she prefaced it as a "secret", please keep this between you, the reader, and me, the blabber-mouth.)

Megan: You know what's good about Amanda having a fever?

Me: Um, no?

Megan: Well, don't tell my teacher this, but I'm probably going to catch her fever, and then I'll get to stay home!!

Me: Right.

If there's one thing I've learned in my 10 years of parenting, it's this ... cold and flu bugs are the only things siblings share.

This morning the doctor diagnosed Amanda with strep throat. Yay! (And by "yay" I mean that I'm happy she has a reason to take antibiotics and get on with life! There's way too much to do in these last 2 weeks before Christmas vacation for any of my family members to be sick!)

Okay, so Megan shared her upside to fevers. Now I will share my upside to them ...

When one of my chickadee's is under the weather, I actually get to be the kind of mom I'd like to be 24/7. (Okay, 14/7.) You see, when one is sick, they are in too much discomfort to give me any attitude, which means I don't give them any attitude. They welcome my babying of them. They suddenly think I'm God's gift to their life (which I really am, but they won't realize that until they have children of their own.) Another perk is that I get to spend some one-on-one time with them (even if that means at the doctor's office.) And one-on-one time means NO SIBLING RIVALRY!! It's like a tiny taste of heaven.

The only thing that would make this time even better, is if there was no make-up work from school to be done while ill. Yeah, someone has got to figure that out. Perhaps a pill could be taken along with the antibiotic which would impart all things missed in school, and then any homework could be dismissed because it's already right up there in their little noggin. Maybe they could even come up with a head scanning device to insure that the academic facts have been retained while home sick. It's almost 2011 people, I don't think I'm asking too much.