On Children and Sore Throats

So, about a month or so ago my son was sidelined for a couple of days with a virus that gave him a sore throat. Since then, he has tried to get out going to school on almost a daily basis by claiming that his throat hurts. It doesn't help that he actually had a sore throat and a fever last week and was out of school for a day. It also doesn't help that it's been in the 30's at night, making the heat run and the upstairs furnace doesn't have a humidifier on it so when we get up in the morning, we all have a slight sore throat from breathing in dry air all night.

Unfortunately on top of the faking we have what can only be called an absolutely dismal performance on Ben's part. If you're going to go through the trouble of lying about being sick, at least try and sell it. Yesterday morning, Linda saw Ben happily frolicking in the hall and when he saw her, he quickly ran back into his room and then reemerged a moment later, shuffling and downtrodden, complaining that his throat hurts. I mean, come on. Once you've been seen acting like a puppy in a meadow of chew toys, you can't then try and pull a fast one. You've been busted punk.

This morning he was a little tired as well, so he got upset that we could see through his ruse and actually started crying. The lack of a fever and the lack of any redness or swelling let us know that he was basically just being pissy about having to go to school, which is when I showed off the parenting skills that will undoubtedly win me Parent of the Year and I told him that I didn't want to hear about his sore throat unless it was preventing him from functioning like a normal human being. I have no idea what that means, honestly. You deal with this bullshit every morning for a month and see how coherent you are. Now, the bad thing is that we will no doubt, send him to school one day when he is legitimately sick because we'll just assume he's faking, but hey, that's what happens to children who cry wolf. They throw up during circle time. Check the fable, it's in there.