And the Award for Mother of the Year Goes to...

My son Ian has had a fairly rough year, and I'm not just referring to the regular abuse he takes from Abby. Normally a pretty healthy kid, the latter half of 2011 has been one medical issue after another. There was the fall from the Media Theatre stage which left him with a broken finger. There was a spider bite that infected his foot while he was about 10 hours from home on a church youth group trip. There was the virus which caused him to miss the first two days of 8th grade (it's always a freakin' virus, isn't it? Never the bacterial kind you can treat with antibiotics). And there were at least two other bouts with a bug that left him down for the count.

Being the less-than-compassionate cautiously caring mom that I am, on most several of these occasions I suggested Ian suck it up persevere:

• You should go to karate class, just don't use that hand with the broken finger.
• Put a sock on to cover the infection and hop around on your other foot. 
• You're not really too sick to go to school are you? 
• Go to school and call me if it doesn't work out.

It's not just because I'm heartless maternally-challenged that I encourage Ian to deal with it work through adversity. It's because Ian's such a good actor. I mean, seriously, the kid has talent. Those dramatic proclivities, however, make it difficult to discern just how sick he is. And being the suspicious and mistrusting perceptive mom that I am, I naturally assume the kid's laying on a thick layer of pathetic and not nearly as ill as he'd have us believe.

So today I sent Ian to school with a sore throat that had him miserable yesterday. Given that he was able to sit upright to play video games and even talk online with his friends, I assumed a dose of Tylenol was all he needed to get his butt outta bed and go to school today. I guess I assumed wrong. Around 11:00 a.m., the nurse called me. The conversation went something like this:

This is Nurse Betty*. Ian is in my office with a sore throat. He said you knew he had a sore throat and that he was sick yesterday. Are his tonsils normally swollen? Some kids have naturally enlarged tonsils. 

I don't think he always has swollen tonsils. The doctor never mentioned it.

Well, they're a little swollen today. He doesn't have a fever, but he looks just miserable. I used to work at your elementary school and don't recall Ian have been to the nurse's office more than a handful of times. And I've only seen him once before in the three years he's been at the middle school. Do you want to call the doctor? Should I give him some ibuprofen? 

Yes, I'll call the doctor and I'll come pick him up now.

Fellow moms know exactly what Nurse Betty was really saying:

You knew Ian had a sore throat and was sick as a dog and you sent him to school anyway. You're an unfit parent. 

How is it you don't know the size of your child's tonsils?

Based on how rarely I see this fine young man, Ian is not faking his condition. 

Call the doctor and pick him up immediately. You're an unfit parent.

Looks like I'm not winning the Mother of the Year Award...

*Name has been changed to protect the innocent.