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It’s the call every working parent dreads. The phone buzzes, you see the childcare centre’s name flash on the screen, and your stomach does a little flip. Today was our day to get that call. Our three-year-old, we were told, was running a bit of a temperature on and off and was generally “a bit flat.”
The Evidence Piles Up (Sort Of)
To be fair, the call wasn’t a total shock. We had noticed she was a little easier to tire out recently, seeming a bit low on her usual boundless energy. So, when the centre called, we accepted the verdict without question. It was almost time to pick her up anyway, so we packed up and headed over to retrieve our little patient.
The Miraculous Recovery
We braced ourselves for a quiet, lethargic evening. What we got was… the complete opposite.
The moment she walked through the front door, it was like a switch flipped. The “flat” and tired child we were told about had been replaced by our regular tiny tornado. She was running around like a mad person, gleefully causing a ruckus with her brother, and generally embracing her role as the resident little menace. As the youngest in the house, she certainly knows how to be pushy to get her way, and sickness wasn’t going to stand in her path tonight!
The Parent’s Dilemma and the Doctor’s Verdict
Watching this whirlwind of energy, we started to doubt. Was she really sick? Or was this an elaborate toddler ploy for an early home-time? Despite our judgement telling us she seemed perfectly fine, we knew the responsible thing to do was to get her checked out. Better safe than sorry.
We managed to wrangle her into the car and off to the doctor for a quick check-up. The diagnosis was a genuine surprise. It turns out she was actually still on the tail end of recovering from one illness but had managed to pick up a second, different bug.
The doctor explained that being so young, her body was fighting it off quickly, leading to those strange peaks and troughs in her energy levels. One minute flat, the next minute ready to scale the furniture. We left with a prescription in hand and a much clearer picture.
Expectations vs. The Harsh Reality of a “Sick” Day
So, armed with the doctor’s official verdict, we made the prudent decision to call in a sick day for her at childcare for the following day. This, of course, led to another fun quirk of parenting in Australia: paying for a service you’re not using. Yay for another hit to the hip pocket! It always felt a bit strange that you still needed to pay for childcare when your child is sick, but it has been explained to us that the educators are all on a salary. Even if a few children are away, the staff are still at work and need to be paid. I guess it makes sense. It’s the same for public holidays too. If they land on a day your child normally attends, you still pay the fee. An interesting concept indeed!
Anyway, with the day at home locked in, my expectations were perhaps a little wishful. I pictured a quiet day. A sick three-year-old should be a bit flat, right? She would need to rest most of the day to recover, maybe cuddle on the couch watching movies. In theory, it should have been a relatively easy day.
WRONG!
How wrong I was. So, below is a summary of my day with my supposedly twice-sick three-year-old.
2:00 AM: The day started early. Our three-year-old decided her bed was no longer acceptable and made her way into our room to sleep with us. This has been a semi-regular occurrence for the past couple of weeks, so it wasn’t a total surprise. The surprise was her energy level. For someone who woke up in the dead of night, she had boundless energy. The two poor, tired parents had to endure a lengthy session of talking, nagging, kicking, and general twisting and turning before she finally settled.
6:30 AM: Like clockwork, she was awake again. And again, she seemed far too energetic for a child supposedly fighting off two separate illnesses.
The School Run: When it was time to take her brother to school, she was adamant she was coming along. We explained that because she was sick, she had to stay home, which was met with a tantrum. Thankfully, it wasn’t a world-ending meltdown. The crisis was averted after two big cuddles and the solemn promise of snacks later in the day.
From here is when the real fun began. A three-year-old normally has boundless energy. For some reason, this supposedly twice-over sick little kid had even more energy than normal. Sigh. How strange.
For the rest of the day, I was in a constant loop of chasing her around the house, being hounded for cuddles (which I gladly gave), or fielding endless requests to watch TV. Eventually, we relented. Toy Story 2 saves the day!
For lunch, she had a voracious appetite. Not only did she devour her own sandwich, but she also decided to “help” me with mine.
In the afternoon, to appease her and burn off some of this mysterious energy, we went out to the park and took her to the swings. She absolutely loves the swings and could happily stay on one all day if given the chance, so we managed to while away a good chunk of time there.
For the rest of the day, she was essentially her normal self. By the late afternoon, some of that frantic morning energy had faded, but she didn’t seem sick at all, at least not to my untrained eye.
Oh, and perhaps the one surprise we did have for the day. Whatever medicine the doctor had prescribed came with a side effect. It made her poop a bit more runny than normal. So yeah, I had the distinct pleasure of cleaning the potty multiple times that day too. What fun.
The Unpredictable Joy of It All
So, were there any big learnings here? Perhaps just one: never underestimate a sick little kid!
Normally, a sick day for an adult is a straightforward affair. It’s spent lying in bed, trying to rest and recover, maybe with a doctor’s visit and some bad-tasting medicine in between. But with a kid being sick, as a parent, you never really know what to expect. They might be so unwell that they sleep most of the day and you need to nurse them, checking their temperature and bringing them soup. Or, they might be like mine was, so energetic that you spend the entire day running around the house trying to keep them entertained.
But that is the joy with kids. They always keep you guessing.
