I was sitting in an airport banging away on my keyboard when I got the text. The words on the screen said something like, "Mila is sick," but I read, "Why didn't you schedule some meetings for tomorrow? STAY AWAY FROM HOME FOR ANOTHER DAY."
Alas, it was too late. I had to continue on my way home.
(A reminder - I am not a competent parent when it comes to sick kids. It's not in my skill set and, frankly, I'm not just bad at it, I'm AWFUL at it.)
I walked through the door at about 1:00 am and promptly was greeted by a blond-haired sprite who was SUPER excited to see me. I don't know how she knew to wake up at that exact moment, but she did. I was stuck with her. Which was great because it took about ten minutes for me to confirm that she was indeed sick.
The good news - Mila is now a competent sick kid. She can handle things all by herself which is great since I'm no help. The bad news - she can't reach the light switches. I still have to turn lights on and be awake while she handles the rest of it by herself. I guess that's fair, though.
Eventually morning came and I settled on the couch with Mila thinking I would do some work while she finished recovering. I made it about five minutes before it became clear that whatever had haunted the kid in the middle of the night had moved on. I couldn't get through one email without her turning into a loon. It became REAL clear REAL fast that she might as well go to school and enjoy her Easter party with her friends because she was TOTALLY FINE OMG.
I let her eat her usual three breakfasts and then made her sit around for an extra hour JUST IN CASE, but woah. The kid was TOTALLY FINE OMG.
So, I took her to school. We were a few hours later than usual. And so were ... a lot of other kids. Out of 23 who are in the class, only 10 were there. Some had been there and left and some hadn't made it there and WELP. As Mila's teacher said, "Welcome to the infirmary."
I left Mila there anyway. She was obviously feeling just fine and with any luck, she wouldn't catch a second round of the sick. There was a super fun Easter celebration planned, and I was glad she was able to be there for it. So, off I went to do some work.
When I returned to pick Mila up, I saw exactly what happens when you give a bunch of preschoolers a giant pile of Easter eggs filled with candy and some of them are sick and some are fine and WOW.
I swear it looked like the Preschooler version of The Hunger Games. Open eggs were strewn about, candy wrappers were here and there, and the kids. OMG THE KIDS. The survivors were high on sugar and the others were sitting around and staring blankly and goodness. I felt terrible for the teachers who were doing everything they could just to survive.
It's a real good thing they have a 3-day weekend to recover. Hopefully that recovery will involve lots of antibacterial stuff, bleach, and possibly booze. I'm not sure who is drinking the booze, but somebody needs it.