My Kid Is Sick, Really

Kid 1 has been sick with a cold virus for a solid week. Most mornings I've let her sleep in. When she wakes up she gives me either thumbs up or thumbs down on school for that day. I then call the school and make the appropriate excuse for her absence. Yesterday I forgot.

When I arrived home last night, I found  my son in a mild tizzy. "There was a recording on the phone from the school! They said that you have 24 hours to give them a note or they'll put her down as skipping school. You have to write a note on a Post-it and hand it to the security guard yourself!"

So today I had to write two notes-one to state unequivocally that she had been sick and not truant and another to beg forgiveness for her tardiness this morning. What I wanted to write for the Not Truant note was "Oh, for heaven's sake of course she wasn't skipping school, you idiots!"

I didn't write that but I did write: Dear PTB (Powers that Be), please excuse Kid 1 's absence yesterday. She was not truant but instead fell victim to a mother overwhelmed by her younger child's chronic illness". I wrote both notes on the back of rectangular sheets from those tiny notepads with a list of groceries with a check box for each item. I did not put "Don't you have anything better to do than read and record these stupid unnecessary notes?" at the bottom of either note.

Kid 1 was not pleased. "Do you always have to be so eloquent? They don't need to know our life story. Your notes are so weird" I suggested that perhaps next time the note should read "She late. Sorry. She go tooth man." and sign it with an X.

I got a laugh. On the way out, Kid 2 stressed that I had to go into the building and hand the note to the security guard myself. "Do I really have to kow tow to these people?" "Just do it!, ordered Kid 2-so I did. Naturally, the security guard had no idea what to do with the note and he couldn't read my writing anyway.