Hooky

I ask you, does this child look sick to you? Does he look even slightly unwell? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I was had. And the scary thing is, he was good. He was very, very good.

As on many days, Teo wasn't thrilled about having to get up and go to school today. Never mind that he has a three-day weekend every weekend (no school on Mondays) and is only going to have three days of preschool this week anyway because of Good Friday. Never mind that he only stays at preschool for two and a half hours at most and that he loves it while he's there. Still, he has a pretty good life here at Chez Mommy and many days he's not particularly motivated to leave it.

Now it's true that the advent of tree pollen season has hit him hard in the last couple of days and we've had to pull out the really big guns (steroids) to keep him from constantly coughing this terrible, croupy cough. But the kid doesn't miss school for allergies, or he'd never be in school. So I got him up, fed and watered him, and got him dressed just like normal this morning.

But then as we were putting his coat on (after I'd run and found two pairs of spring rain boots to make going outside seem a bit more exciting) he said in a very pathetic voice, "But I'm sick, mommy." I told him he just had a cough from his allergies and that he can go to school with that, but then he said, "But I can feel I'm sick." "Where do you feel it," I asked him. And here is where he was either unfathomably devious or just very lucky. He said, "My tummy."

You see, Luke had a little low-grade stomach bug over the weekend that mostly consisted of the runs, but still, there was a case to be made that Teo had been exposed. "Do you feel like you have to poop or like you're gong to throw up?" I ask. In hindsight, a very leading question. "Throw up," my boy answers.

What could I do? I took off his coat and boots, resigned myself to missing yoga again, and sent him up to change back into his pajamas. After I called the school and Tina to let her know, I ran upstairs to check on him. I found him in mismatched pj's sitting on a stool in the bathroom, next to the commode. Still, you have to agree, pretty convincing. I talked him he into moving to my bed where he could cozy up watching pbs with a bucket next to him, and even got him a cup of ginger ale (left over from Luke's illness) with a straw. Then I went downstairs and did an hour of yoga.

When I came back he had miraculously transformed into the smiling, happy, energetic child you see above. If anything he seems more full of vim and vigor than usual. He's been jumping around the house all morning like a Mexican jumping bean, engaged me in a rousing round of peek-a-boo, played play-dough for a half and hour, and helped me exorcise all the tiny pieces of Styrofoam that were attached by static to a xylitol gum (which he's trying to show off in the picture) & toothpaste order that arrived in the mail. Maybe that's the steroids, though.

I think the evidence speaks for itself. Let the record state, then, that on this, Tuesday, the seventh day of April, 2009 Matteo played hooky for the first time. Let's hope he's not a big repeat offender.