A Dilema

I picked the boys up from school on Tuesday and immediately knew something was up. Theo came down the stairs from science class and flopped into a chair outside the office. "I am sooooo thirsty," he whined. And then he looked up at me with the tell-tale glossy eyes. When he placed one of his little palms on my arm and it felt like a pancake just off the griddle, kind of infused with a throbbing heat, I knew that he was feverish. We got home and he snuggled into the couch with a blanket- which he never does. Usually our arrival home includes Theo throwing his backpack and jacket in a heap in the entry way and then running to the legos. Anyway, I took his temp and it was medium high. By bedtime, however, he seemed great. So Jon and I debated the question- should we be good workers or good parents? Send a fairly healthy Theo off to school so we can go to work? Or keep a slightly ill Theo home so he can fully recuperate? Believe me, it's a hard decision. We decided to sleep on it.
In the morning he was fever free, but we know that he has this pattern of spiking again in the late afternoon and we knew that Wednesdays are long days for him with after school Spanish lessons. So Jon and I re-worked our responsibilities at our jobs so that Jon could stick around in the morning and I'd return at noon to spend the afternoon with Theo. I rushed in to work and sprinted around for four hours, and then drove home with my head spinning from all that I had done, and everything that I would have to try to squeeze in at some other moment. But then I walked in the front door and found Theo and Jon enjoying a nice lunch in the sunny kitchen and I realized there was no where else I was supposed to be at that moment.
The afternoon turned into one of those blissful escapes from the routine that you so rarely get. Theo wasn't actively ill, no puking, or coughing, or even really the sniffles, but he was moving a little slowly and was much more interested in reading or snuggling than he usually is. We spent four lovely hours in the house, chasing the sunshine through the rooms. When it came in through the office windows, we lay on the patch of sunshine on the floor and listened to Pippi on CD, then we moved to his bedroom and I curled up in a sunny beanbag and read a magazine while he talked to himself (out of the corner of his mouth like he does when he's telling a good story) and made several wonderful lego creations. His fever never returned and, in retrospect, school would have been no problem, but I am so glad we decided to take the day off. I think we all needed it.