sick.

On the start of our weekend last week, little guy got sick.  My first thought was that he drank way too much chocolate milk (he's an addict, like his Mama).  When I got him all calmed down (he gets way scared and freaked out when he's sick, I'm not sure why, I've talked to him so many times, I just love him up and assure him that everything's going to be okay), and he actually took a two hour nap, a rare occassion, I thought maybe he was in fact not well.  The next morning he woke up acting better and even ate.  But by that evening I could tell he was not himself.  The next morning, in the early hours, he woke up sick again.  And it took several days later for him to feel better.  In fact today was his first "almost" normal back to himself kind of day. 
And as life would have it, guess who woke up in the early morning hours of today sick?  Yep, that'd be me.  Yuck, I hate being sick.  I can handle colds, but the stomach flu is so gross.  And it totally knocked me out.  I've been laying around all.day.long.

Being a working Mom adds a lot of stress to the matter.  Why should I feel guilty for needing to take some days off because little guy or myself is sick?  It's not like I chose this for him or me.  And yet, here I am contemplating whether I should go and suffer tomorrow at work, or stay home another day to get the rest my body is clearly telling me I need.

I'm leaning towards staying home.  It's better than a relapse at work, during a lesson.  The thing with teaching, especially the little ones, is that it requires a lot of your energy.  It's active, it's animated, and one must be on guard at all times.  I can catch the little girl in the back corner talking when she needs to be paying attention to new material.  I can spot that little flash image of a piece of gum (although for the record, that's a school rule, not mine, I don't see why chewing gum is such a crime, the chewing actually keeps the student more alert if you ask my opinion), and I can spot that subtle glance at a cheat sheet during a Spelling quiz.  And in order to be that super teacher that I need to be, I must be well.

There's just one thing.  Tomorrow is little guy's Star of the Week party in his class.  :(  I am filled with guilt.  So I've been playing this seesaw game of "I'm okay, I can do it" and "Kylie, let's be real, you're sick".  What to do, what to do...