This week has been pretty rubbish, really. Nothing serious for us - although people I care about are going through pretty hellish circumstances which makes what I'm about to write so trivial. But then what would this blog be if it didn't have its minutiae of moans and trash?
I was very evil last week and made Anna go to school when she had a cold. My rationale was that if she had the energy to argue about whether she should go to school, she was well enough. I'm sure that sort of attitude in the Middle Ages that would have made me the person who said something like "well, I can't tell if she's a witch. Let's just throw her in the water and see what happens." I'm not proud of it.
This week has been a different story. She's had a hell of a cough, a sore throat and been completely wiped out by the bug that's going round the school on top of her cold - and she's kindly passed that on to me. I was fine Monday morning. Monday afternoon, I'm sitting with her on the sofa and suddenly I get all shivery. Cue an hour and a half's total zonkedness and since then I've felt varying shades of pathetic. Feel free to give me your sympathy. I seem to be on the mend now, though, although I thought that on Wednesday and ended up going to the supermarket. It took me till this morning to recover from that exertion.
We also have from time to time two extra children to take and pick up from school and the like. When I say take, the younger one most often goes with my lovely friend who lives up the road and I take the older one to a different school with Anna. My lovely friends have been taking her this week too while I've been ill and Anna's been off.
So, this morning I phoned a friend, got distracted for longer than I meant and then realised that the school had texted me to tell me that Anna wasn't in and there had been no explanation from me. I had phoned in every other day this week but had forgotten today. Just as I was about to phone, my mobile rang. It was the other child's mother, from work, beside herself because she'd had a similar message about her daughter. She'd phoned the school and they were clear that she wasn't there.
Now, I hadn't actually seen her get into my friend's car this morning, but I was sure she must have done. And these are not just random parents, these are some of my best friends and I'd trust them with my life. If she hadn't turned up at their house, all of 20 seconds away, I'm absolutely sure they would have told me. Even though you know all this rationally, the panic just imagines all kinds of scenarios. In my mind, she had either run away or been kidnapped. Her mother, understandably, was in just as much of a panic. Just a few years ago, a wee boy was murdered after being dropped off at school by his mum on her way to work. After that, they put in a GroupCall system which alerts parents automatically by text if their child isn't at school.
Anyway, what seemed like an age later, but in reality was less than 10 minutes, the school had phoned again to say that she was there after all. Her mother and I have never quite been so relieved in our lives. She'd just been late for her first class and hadn't been marked in. It was a heart-stopping moment that probably took 10 years off my life, but I'd rather that they made that error than something had gone wrong and we didn't know until the end of the day. It's also good that they register the children in every class these days so you couldn't get away with what certain of my year used to do - get marked in at registration and then disappear.
Anyway, that all caused a bit of an adrenaline rush from which I'm rapidly crashing now. Must be time for another cup of tea.
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