There was a stretch of February and March where it felt like the kids were sick at least once a week. Alva had strep throat that took her out for two days. Oskar had strep throat shortly thereafter which took him out for another two days. And then Alva had a rash from the amoxicillin that took her out for another day. Martin and I tag teamed parenting, depending on our work schedules, and a lot of their days were filled with TV and independent play. The liberty with which we allowed our TV to provide entertainment on these days out from school reminded me of my days spent at home when I was younger.
Growing up there were days where I just didn’t want to go to school. It wasn’t anything specific: I wasn’t sick, I wasn’t trying to avoid a test or bad situation, I just needed a day off. So on occasion I would fake a stomach ache (harder for my mom to verify) and I would enjoy a day on the couch “not watching TV.” On the days where my mom clearly knew I was faking it, her rule was no TV. And naturally, as soon as she left to go about her day of errands (this was when I was old enough to stay home) I would turn on the TV and binge the daytime joys of Jerry Springer, The Price Is Right and whatever else happened to be on at that time.
Over the years my mom got smarter and implemented tricks to alert her if I had been breaking her one rule while she was out. She would feel the tv when she got home to see if it was warm. She would set the tv channel to some obscure number and check what channel it was on when she got home. And I am sure she had countless other alerts that I still don’t know about.
Tricks and shenanigans aside, I am thankful that my mom allowed me to stay home on occasion, even when I was clearly not sick. Sometimes I just needed a day off to relax, lay on the couch, watch a little tv and not deal with the pressures of being a kid. Hell, I still feel like that sometimes, and when I do, I either take the day off or escape for the weekend.
So I decided a few weeks ago that each kid gets two wellness days a year, no questions asked. Still no TV but at least a low pressure day to take a break from life. I figured these wellness days would be needed in a few years… who knew Oskar would need one sooner than expected. And yet Monday morning of this week Oskar claimed he had a headache and said he couldn’t do math or German with a headache and therefore couldn’t go to school. He clearly wasn’t sick, but something was off making him not want to go to school. And so he had his first official wellness day and thankfully I had an easier day at work to accommodate.
I worked in the morning while Oskar did puzzles, worked on a “paint by numbers” painting (a previous sick day purchase) and played with Legos. For lunch we took a walk to Mo’s Burgers to pick up lunch to go. And I had an hour break between meetings where we got to spend time together building with Legos (meaning Oskar built and I searched for the pieces).
It was a perfect day and by the end of it, Oskar’s “headache” was gone and he was ready to go back to school the next day.
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