The Power of Positive Thinking

When Spilly got up this morning, she said to me, "I think I'm very sick today. I have a sore throat and a cough and throw-uppy in the bed."

After a hurried check of her bed turned up nothing, I said, "I think you are okay. What do you want for breakfast?"

"But my foot is very sore," she said. "But it's getting better."

It didn't take long for the truth to come out, once we were sitting together over Cheerios. "I think I should stay home from school this afternoon," she said. "I think I should stay home with you."

You see, I have been home for the past couple of days with total laryngitis (the worst thing that can befall a teacher--or the best, depending on how tired and overworked you feel--because you are utterly unable to do your job effectively; it's kind of like a carpenter losing the use of his/her hands). Spilly has been enjoying having her Mommy all to herself each morning. Daddy has also been enjoying my enforced holiday, as it has meant that he could actually get some work done, in his online job as a technical writer. Most mornings he hangs out with Spilly, then gets to work when she heads off on the afternoon bus to junior kindergarten. Then he works well into the night (I am the afternoon-and-evening parent usually).

"Is that what you think?" I said, in my endearingly raspy way. "But what about storytime, and arts and crafts, and costumes, and counting, and everything good like that at junior kindergarten?"

"Ohhhhh," she said in the airy, can-do, sing-song way of a four-year-old. "I can do these things with you."

We had a lovely morning. We coloured a great picture of Elmo with hot chocolate. We identified which snowman pictures matched, and drew lines between them. We learned what "og" sounds like, and figured out a whole pile of words after that. We traced some "e's," making the pencil come out of the driveway and around the block. We danced to the Jingle Cats. We dressed up like the Easter Bunny. We wrote "Sanj" with fridge magnets (we didn't have another two "a's", unfortunately, and the "y" was too high for the Mighty Spills to reach, otherwise we could have spelt The Best Word in the World).

Periodically, Spilly said, "I have good news, Mommy. I am not going to school this afternoon."

And I would say, "I have good news too. You are going to school this afternoon."

"What if I ask Daddy, and he says yes I can stay home?"

"Daddy will not say that."

This went back and forth until the phone rang. It was Spilly's school. This next part is "no word of a lie," as my Maritime hubby would say. Honest. It really happened this morning.

The nice lady on the other end of the phone said, "This is just a courtesy call to see if you were aware that some of the buses north of here [well, she said the exact name of the area, but I figure I'll not broadcast it here] were cancelled this morning. So there will be no afternoon kindergarten today." My daughter's school is a country school, and entirely bussed by this particular busing company.

I said, "Oh, no, I didn't know that." (I didn't think until after I'd hung up to ask why they were canceled, what with the blue sky and all. There must have been some rotten weather early this morning at the time when the school board makes this kind of decision.)

I hung up the phone, and turned to the Raving Spills, who was busy coloring candy canes bright yellow.

I said, "Well. I have some news."

"What is it?"

"It's serious. You'd better sit down."

Looking very solemn and big-eyed, she did. Then she whispered, "What is it, Mommy?"

"That was your school." I said it sadly, as if the school had just died.

"What did they want?"

"Well. It appears that you have gotten your wish." I sat down on the floor beside her. "There. Is. No. School. This. Afternoon."

It took a second for it to sink in, and the eyes got even bigger, and then the shrieking started. "We can bake COOKIES, and make SQUARES, and do PAINTING, and make a SNOWMAN, and have STORIES....."

I wish I could say that the joy lasted and lasted. But it quickly turned into campaigning:

"I definitely do not need a nap today, because I'm a big girl."