Thank God it's.... Friday?

So, Tuesday I went to pick up the girl.

She comes flying out of the classroom and my heart melts. "Awwwww... she's so happy to see me," I mentally ooze.

"Mom! Mom! Guess what!?" She says as if she had just come back from a trip to the moon.

"What is it, Punkie?" I ask her. I, of course, expect to hear that she missed me or made me an awesome picture to put on the door.

"Nadia threw up all over her book! There were bits of food everywhere! And it came out of her NOSE!"

Mrs Drysdale came to the door to let us all know that a third of the class was missing due to the "tummy bug" that was running rampant. Suddenly, I had the feeling that the rest of my week wasn't going to get much better than this.

Sure enough, within the hour, the kid had a fever and was looking pale.

In an unusual turn of events, she actually let her medicate her. This was NOT boding well for my night time slumbers. I was resigned. Let the barfing begin.

She ate a light dinner. (Less to barf up later, I hoped.) Seemed relatively cheerful. Took a nice and relaxing bath (her, not me) and off she went to bed. I actually went to bed on the early side with the resolve that I would be up at some point in the darkest hours with a heaving child.

Amazingly, the night passed without interruption (though I barely slept while waiting for what I feared was the inevitable moan for Mom) and in the morning, the kid crawled into bed with me. I think that we would find scientific evidence indicating that the interior temperatures of an active volcano are cooler than her body at that point.

After submissively partaking of her ibuprophen, she settled back into my bed and fell sound asleep. Jeff and I looked at each other. Should we call an ambulance? Medi-vac? While even in the worst of circumstances she was not a good medicine taker, the returning to bed and falling asleep thing was.... unheard of.

He wished me luck and practically ran out the door.

Great.

Two hours later, she was up and ready for food.

Food.

Great.

A bowl of cereal and two slices of toast and a glass of apple juice later, she asked for more.

More?

Did she think I was crazy? It was bad enough that with each mouthful that disappeared down her gullet all I could do was picture what it was going to look like on the way back. No way.

I convinced her to give this food a chance to settle and then she could have some more.

And in two hours time, she wanted more.

Kate proceeded to snack her way through the entire day. The fever went down and up depending on how much medication was in her system. She complained sporadically of a head ache. She played all day without pausing to catch her breath. (Eat food? Yes. Breathe? No.)

Dad checked in periodically to see how we were getting on. How kind.

Wednesday was also parent conference night at school. They have child care available at the school so both parents can attend. (Creche facilities, they call them.) I had scheduled a 7:30pm appointment so that both Mom and Dad could attend. So much for the two equally involved parents approach to her education.

Dad stepped through the door at 7:00pm (ish)... I gave last minute bedtime instructions, put on shoes and coat and bolted for the door. Freedom and the promise of a conversation with another adult (or even two!) without the presence of Little Miss Ears (and mouth) beckoned. I headed into the fading light with with eager step and joyful heart.

And promptly tripped on the sidewalk.

It was the kind of trip that once it begins you know will only end in disaster.

It seemed to happen in slow motion. The stumble. The sickening lurch forward, knowing that I was about to become very intimate with the feel and texture of the concrete. In an irrational and perhaps misplaced hope, I flung myself towards the nearest parked car, hoping to be able to catch myself on it and thwart my fated fall.

Well, it sounded like a good idea in my head.

Instead, I managed to bounce off the car while scrabbling for any kind of handhold and landed on the street (instead of the sidewalk) in a crumpled heap.

Oh, the pain. (And the indignity.)

Yet, all I could do was sit there (once I had rolled myself into a position that less resembled subservience) and laugh at the absurdity of the events.

"Click," I chuckled to myself.

Click?

Let me explain.

My brother Geoff and I have always had a very.... weird... relationship. We've always been connected by this odd sense of humour. In our more adult years, we were perfectly happy to spend evenings playing video games or watching Godzilla movies (if it's not the man in the rubber suit, we don't want to see it) or worse.... Beevis and Butthead. (Zip 'im back up, he still sucks.)

This actually began when we were much younger. The details are a bit hazy, but the basic facts remain the same.

It's a summer day and we (Alice and I) have a pack of the kids up at Riverview Park Elementary School playing on the ... well, playground equipment. I think we were all getting ready to go and Geoff and I were ambling along when at the concrete base of a fenced area of the playground (designed to keep primary school students from falling 10 feet to their gruesome demise) ran... a mouse.

He appeared to be the kind of mouse who appreciated order and probably rules and ran in a very straight line along the wall. The kind of line that brought to mind a car respectfully staying on it's side of the road. "Look," one of us pointed out. "Two way mouse traffic!"

We both giggled our way home and for months/years/decades would randomly say, "Two way mouse traffic" in order to make the other one (at the very least) smile.

Oh, right. I was explaining "click."

So, at Mom's house is a set of stairs going to the second floor. (As most stairs do tend to go someplace higher or lower than the elevation you are currently at.) Even better... this particular set of stairs has a light switch at the bottom AND the top of the stairs.

Well, Geoff used to lurk around the stairs for various reasons (I won't talk about his superhero ideas... today.) but one of them involved waiting for me to travel upstairs on some mission (usually involving the bathroom) and then... when I was making my descent.... he'd flick the lights off. Then I would go flick the light on and try to dash to his position. He'd flick it off. I'd flick it on. You get the picture. (And so did Fritz Freleng... and probably Looney Tunes via Daffy and Bugs.)

Well, at some point during one of our many "flick" wars, we were happily flicking away when one of us (and I'm going to give him the credit because I don't really think it was me....) simply said, "CLICK." And the other person (presumably me) flicked the light switch.

Well, after nearly peeing our pants and laughing until our sides hurt and tears streamed down our faces, it has been another one of our many one word inside jokes. (Though perhaps not so inside any more....)

"Click" is now something I think or say when I've done something that borders on the absurd and is the first thing that popped into my head while sitting by the side of the road, clutching my hand. The second thing was whether or not I was going to see myself on YouTube.

Though I was a few feet from my door, I decided I was in good enough shape to continue to the appointment and so off I went. (The hand (by the way) is fine. When I got into the classroom, Mrs. Downey and Mrs. Drysdale looked at me as if I had been in a fist fight and when I explained, they got me an ice pack. There was some swelling, but now it's just a lovely shade of yellow.)

Oh, and Kate is just fine. They constantly talked about how kind and caring she is in the classroom and eager to help. (HA! They tell good jokes!) She's where she is supposed to be in most things, a little behind socially (but fine for an only child), her handwriting is a bit behind (but I've been assured that will come along without me stressing about it.) and her numeracy is just spot on.

She was home sick again on Thursday since the fever was still hanging around. Talk about drive me crazy! She was fine besides the internal furnace set to "incinerate." Chattered away all day. Jumped all over me. Allowed me to get less than nothing done.

When I called her off school that morning, the receptionist said, "Oh, I hope Kate feels better soon!"

"So, do I," I said. My tone of voice must have contained high levels of exasperation, because she promptly burst out laughing.

I didn't care what her temperature was... she was going to school Friday or I was going to move out. Luckily for both of us, Friday came and she was as cool as a cucumber... and back to school. All was well once more.

Click.