Fool Me Once

I got a call from the school this week.

My son's school to be specific.

It was an early morning call.  As in, he had just hopped on the bus a half hour ago.

I assumed it would be my son calling to tell me he forgot something, but instead it was him, telling me that he really didn't feel well and could I pick him up.

I was a little surprised seeing as he and I had some time together that morning and he never said anything, he did have a cough and cold, but nothing major.  I assumed that maybe he was feeling ill from the bus ride or something.

What made me crazy is, no adult at the school ever spoke to me, I wish that the nurse or someone had called me so that I could have said,"Does he have a temp?  Do you think we could try and see if he feels better and if not I will absolutely come and get him?"  This did not happen and I also didn't want to seem uncaring, so off I went.

I had to scramble to get my daughter ready so that we could pick up her brother and then drop her off at her school since we wouldn't make it back in time for her bus.

We arrive at the school and all "mommy senses" tell me, he's fine.  I even asked if he was sure he needed to go home.  He was sure.

Once we dropped his sister off, I turned to him and said, "Ok, I have to ask the question, did you forget to do any homework over the weekend?"

Poor kid, he never stood a chance, he has inherited my nervous smile when I know I might be in trouble. 

He confessed that he forgot to do something that was due, you guessed it , first period. 

He then went on to say that he really and truly did not feel well and thought he might get sick.  I went on to explain that I didn't doubt that he didn't fell well, but that I was also pretty sure that any symptoms he was having were due to his nerves over forgetting.

I thought it was funny that he didn't try and do the work real quick in the hallway, or take the zero.  It made me realize that he really does want to do a good job and gets upset when he doesn't. 

Unfortunately, he didn't realize the error until he was on the bus (again, I would have scrambled to write something).  I told him that in the future, should he forget something, I would much rather bring him in a little late and miss one class.  Missing an entire day over one class is not ideal.  I did warn him that I could not guarantee that I would be happy about it, but definitely not as mad over picking up a not so sick kid.

I then decided to let him off the hook, he is a really good kid, and tell him that he would get away with this once.  Once.

What was a nice little life lesson too was two days later when he was overwhelmed with the make-up work he had to do.  He realized it probably wasn't worth it and he would definitely try to be more organized in the future.