The Girl who Cried Pancakes

Photo by Sue Bauzys

For Kelly DeBie, who blogs at DeBie Hive, the title of World’s Worst Mom isn’t good enough. She’s gone intergalactic. It’s like the Miss Universe beauty pageant — reigning supreme on just earth is not enough. But has anyone ever thought about what might pass for pretty 4,000 light years away? And with that in mind, who knows — the folks on that other planet may think Kelly’s doing a fabulous job with her kittens, er, kids.

I bestowed upon myself the “Worst Mom in the Entire Universe” award a few days back. I think it’s an award that we all receive at some point, whether it is proclaimed by a child or self-imposed. Luckily, there is only one of them, so we never get to hold onto it for long — some other mom will always come along to snatch it away.

The reason I won the award involves vomit. So, right there, you know it’s not a pleasant story. Aidan had a stomach bug earlier in the week, but it was a short one and he went right back to school after a day off. Two factors were at work there. First, the child has the weakest stomach known to man. Anything can make him throw up. Second, he thoroughly enjoys a day off, even if it means he has to throw up every so often. Anyway, after less than 24 hours, he was back up and going.

Wednesday morning was a drama filled one. Once a month, the school district has a late start day, and though Aidan and Ashley get a few hours off in the morning, Ally doesn’t. To compensate for the fact that she gets to go out to lunch and just generally gets do a lot more stuff than they do, I always try to do something with them on late start mornings. She found out I planned to take her older siblings out for breakfast while she was being forced to go to school. And she wasn’t happy about it. And when she isn’t happy, no one is.

I stuck to my guns, and drove her to school. I brushed off her whining about her tummy hurting, because that is her go-to fake illness. She uses it any time she is in trouble, wants to stay up late or isn’t getting her way. You could say she is like the boy who cried wolf, at some point, I just stopped believing her. Besides, when she is really sick, she tends to curl up in a ball and lay on the floor. She was doing neither, and wasn’t running a fever. Plus, she ate breakfast just fine. So, off to school she went. And off we went to eat some pancakes.

During breakfast, her teacher called to tell me she was complaining about her stomach hurting. The teacher, who knows Ally very well, agreed with my assessment that she was probably faking. She told Ally that she talked to me, and that we had decided she needed to stay at school.

We finished breakfast, then I drove to school. The older two start about the same time that the preschool gets out on late start days. I dropped the other two off and waited out front for Ally’s class. One teacher walked out, pulled me aside and gave me the news. Ally had just thrown up. As they were lining up to leave. All over one of her classmates. Ugh.

I went back to her classroom and apologized to anyone that would listen. She was a mess, and the custodian was already cleaning up the worst of it. I felt horrible for the kid who caught the brunt of it. At least she had on a huge coat, and it didn’t get anywhere else besides the coat and her backpack. Knowing your child has vomited all over another one isn’t pleasant though, even if the damage wasn’t that bad.

I took Ally home, gave her a bath and found some jammies for her to wear. Beating myself up in my head already, though a part of me thought maybe she had done this to herself. Maybe, just maybe, she got herself so upset that she made herself sick. Her teacher and I were on the same page about that. That is, until she came down after her bath. She spiked a 102 fever and fell asleep almost instantly on the couch, not moving for over 2 hours. Even Ally can’t fake a fever.

I’m not psychic. She tends to fake tummy aches. I didn’t believe her. But I didn’t believe her when I should have. And a little girl in her class paid the price for my unwillingness to believe her. Guess she didn’t just want pancakes after all.

I’ve already surrendered the award. I didn’t keep it for long. Someone else out there earned it just after I did. And we all do, at some point. No matter how hard we try, all of us will screw up occasionally.

I just wish my screw up didn’t have to involve vomit.