My Real Family

She Really is Sick

"Mom, I don't feel good." Maddy slugishly walks down the steps "My head is pounding."

I set down the food I'm working on and feel her forehead.  It doesn't feel warm at all.

"Honey you don't feel warm.  Eat some breakfast and take medicine.  We'll see how you are after that."

She walks over to the table, stealing an apple from the bowl in the middle and sitting down with everyone else.

"Do you have anything important today?"  Justin asks "I don't want you missing anything."

"I have a history presentation first period, but that's it." She bites into the apple "I just feel like crap."

I walk some medicine over to her, "Take this and see if it helps.  It's up to you what you do, but you worked hard on that project."

"I know." She sighs taking the medicine "I wanna try to go."

Justin takes the kids upstairs to get ready, and I don't get to eat my breakfast.  Maddy sits across from me, unusually quiet as she looks over her notes.

"Honey, why don't you just go back to bed?  If you don't feel good then I don't want you to go."

"Because I can't chance failing that project."  She gets up, not wanting to go "I think I'll be fine.  The medicine helped a little."

I watch her walk back upstairs, knowing that she really should go.  She only has to be there 2 days a week now that we have her doing mostly online classes, so she can rest the next few days.

A few minutes later, Justin runs downstairs with the kids to leave.  I stop him when I see Noah trying to follow sneakily.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I go school with Char!" He quickly grabs his little backpack "I big now."

"I don't think so."  I laugh at how cute he looks "You aren't that big yet.  Remember you have to stay little for mommy, right?"

"Okay, I go work with daddy." He tries to get down.  This time Justin picks him up.

"I wish you could, but today is a bad day for that, buddy.  I promise, you can come with tomorrow." He hands him to me, where he silently cries in my arms "If you're good for mommy we can go to the playground when I get home."

This makes him happy, and magically all is good in the world again.  He helps me wave by to them, then plays with his shit ton of toys while I clean the kitchen.

"Hey, Noah." I walk in to see him building train tracks throughout the whole playroom and living room "Do you wanna help mommy with the dishes?"

"Okay," he jumps up immediately oddly excited to help "I wash my bowl."

I help him move a chair over and hand him his cup and bowl to wash while I stick everything else in the dishwasher.

"Mommy I'm done." He hands me his super, extra clean bowl after rinsing it out with scorching hot soap and water about 20 times "I play again?"

I dry off his hands and set him down so he can run off.  He looks back just long enough to make sure I'm still working on the dishes.

By the time I'm done, I'm soaked because he splashed water all over me and then left a huge bowl full of water in the sink for me to accidentally dump.

"Come on, you can play upstairs in our room.  I need a shower from your mess." I grab a few toys for him to take up and he follows me into our bathroom so I know he doesn't do anything dumb.