Sick day

It's not that I don't believe him. I believe that he believes he is sick. I just didn't think he was all that sick in the big scheme of things. Yesterday Big Dog woke up with a sore throat and a cough. Not a bad cough, just a little bit of a hacking cough. The kind of cough a kid gets is they have a stuffy head. And the sore throat? Well, I chalked that up to the same stuffy head and a night of breathing through his mouth. But I kept him home from school. I'm trying to be the good mom, the one who doesn't send a sick child back to the classroom to infect his classmates. I worked from home and he spent the better part of the day on the sofa watching TV. But he didn't seem sick. Not really.

By dinner time we knew something was up. He was tired, and before dessert was served, he'd gone to his room and climbed into bed. Not long later he was asleep. Occasionally through the night I heard a bit of coughing. Then 5 am rolled around. He was having a full fledged coughing fit. He climbed into our bed and told me he didn't want any blankets. This is not my Big Dog, not at all. So he sipped some water and I gave him some honey to calm the cough and after a while his cough started to mellow. He was almost asleep. Then he made a sound, like an injured puppy. A sound that let me feel his pain and frustration. And then he threw up.

Poor kid. I will not make the mistake of doubting him when he tells me he is sick again, not any time soon.