Ignorance is bliss... if it avoids ‘who’s staying off work to care for a poorly child?’ chat
“HE’S had a couple of watery nappies,” the nursery assistant told me, as I collected the twins.
Regular readers will know this is a medical term implying there may be trouble ahead for both Thomas and his parents.
It’s a phrase neither I, nor Victoria, ever like to hear so I decided to keep this new information to myself.
There’s no point spending the evening recalculating our next few working days on the off-chance Thomas may be ill. In fact, I’d argue ignorance can be bliss if it allows you to watch television in peace, rather than argue over who should cancel work and stay at home with a sick child.
He seemed fine and I fell asleep fairly confident the watery nappies were anomalies in an otherwise healthy child.
Thankfully, I’m not a doctor because our early morning wake-up call was Thomas being sick in bed. However, he seemed fine once we spruced him up and he was even chatting (nonsense) and dancing with his monkey (not a real one).
I reminded Victoria nursery started at 8am and he was more than well enough to go.
“You’re joking, he’s not going anywhere, he’s been sick,” Victoria said, a little too aggressively. There was a case for sending him, predominantly because nursery does not operate a money-back policy, if a child fails to attend.
The business would be impossible to run without a guaranteed income, so it’s completely understandable they don’t refund you.
Anyway, Victoria had nominated herself as the carer for the day.
Thankfully, Thomas was out shopping by lunchtime and by the evening was on fine form.
Naturally, two days later, I went to bed feeling a little unwell knowing I’d caught the bug, but confident I’m far stronger than Thomas so might not even notice it. Unfortunately, I had the same symptoms but weirdly, I felt terrible and was forced to cancel work and take to my bed.
The only explanation to me was I’d caught a stronger mutation of the virus but thankfully, Florence Nightingale was on hand to watch my demise.
“It’s a good job we didn’t send you to nursery to get our money’s worth, have you got a watery nappy?” Victoria helpfully added as I complained about stomach pains.
“He was out shopping with me and even carried the basket by now,” she added to reinforce my own weakness in direct comparison to Thomas.
As she left the room laughing to herself, it struck me there was a new sheriff in town, one who was better equipped to handle a watery nappy than the old one.