Today I participated in a study of Stay-At-Home-Dads for a nice young woman. She is doing a study on those fathers in my line of work. I guess you can study anything in college and get away with it. I mean, I got a degree in Recording Arts, so who am I to judge? How could anyone know that the music industry as we knew it would crumble and reemerge as something completely different?
Back to the study. I was asked questions on my decision to become part of a growing community of dad's that bear the brunt of the child rearing, the ease of my job, and the social backlash I have witnessed and/or felt. All through the questions and my very enlightening answers, I kept getting this feeling that I was doing really well at my job. Feeling like I was succeeding at my craft, so to speak. I mean, I was giving the answers; they were coming from my mouth. I guess it's just nice to hear it once in a while. Even if you are the one saying them out loud.
We were about finished with our little phone conversation when a call tried to butt in. It was the school calling. I just wrote it off as some Robo-call about this activity or that meeting getting cancelled because there was some snow on the ground. (The world does stop when snow falls, right?) Promptly after my interview was finished, I checked my voice mail. It was the dreaded NURSE'S office! Don Don Daaaa! (Insert the Imperial March theme from Star Wars here) Turns out my older one was feeling a little under the weather. Ms. Nursey Nurse-lady was concerned about my little one because "She is not one to complain, but she wasn't feeling that well. Her stomach was bothering her. There is a bug going around." (Not one to complain? Do you even know my kid? Come spend some time at our house. I am positive you will hear enough complaining that your ears will bleed like a hemophiliac. And show me a six year old that doesn't complain. I'd like to visit this mythical world in which you practice medicine.) No Crap, Lady. That "bug" you speak of already has worn out it welcome at our house. That nice houseguest visited the older one and her father last week so I doubt she picked it up again. I had my suspicions as to why my "never-one-to-fib-about-her-health" wanted out of her school's activities. She received a Rainbow Loom last night and has been compulsively making rubber band bracelets since. I think she just missed her new toy. Or she has come down with Craft-itis; where one MUST craft at all hours of the day or she will die!
So I go bail her out of her pseudo prison that is elementary school. The secretary informs me of the bug and I instill in her my theories of the mysterious "sickness" my child has come down with. We both agree on the validity of my hypothesis and the resourcefulness of one first grader.
We get home. A bracelet is made (big surprise). Pick up her sister at preschool. And have lunch. And she is no worse for the wear. Praise God. She is cured! Its a Christmas Miracle!
I just hope this isn't the start of a pattern of behavior. I just hope I won't be getting similar calls on History Test Day. Or from the SAT proctor. Or from her College Bio-Molecular Professor.
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