I sometimes grossly underestimate the level of attention the Dictator pays to me when I'm talking. I really *should* know better by now, but sometimes I think that whatever I am talking about seems so boring that the Dictator would have no interest in listening to me anyways. I'm always wrong about this.
This weekend I noticed the Dictator's eye looked a little red. As the day went on, it got redder. A note had been sent out from school earlier in the week stating that pink eye was going around. The Dictator has never had pink eye, but I've seen lots of other kids when they've had it. I was 99.9% sure the Dictator had it. Blarg. :(
Trying to not alarm the Dictator, I asked ambiguous questions about how she was feeling and if any part of her body felt itchy. She told me "I feel like a giant broccoli" and "my fingernail itches". Hmmm....... No mention of her eye bothering her, and I didn't realize fingernails could itch.
I did have to randomly hold the Dictator still and look at her eye a few times, just to stay on top of the situation. The Politician and I did discuss pink eye a few times and talked about it while we were getting the Dictator ready for bed. I didn't think she was listening. She seemed too busy singing inappropriate songs as loud as she could while dancing around in front of the mirror. Naked. Yeah....that's how we do Sunday nights around here.
The next day, her eye looked all better, but I decided to just keep her home from school. In case it started to look worse or flare up after she was awake for awhile. I didn't even mention to her why she was staying home from school. I swear I didn't! We went to the mall, we saw Santa, we had lunch with friends, we spent too much money. We had a fun day together. We didn't talk about her eye at all! Not once all freaking day long!!
The next day the Dictator went to school. The Politician dropped her off with instructions from me to not mention pink eye or why she wasn't in school. I knew at that point it was not pink eye and she was not contagious. I didn't want to have people staring at her eye all day at school checking it, since I knew it was okay.
I went to get the Dictator from school. The first thing her teacher says:
"Her eye seemed fine today. A little red, but not oozy or pink eye looking. I think it's fine. I watched it just to be sure, but she seems a-okay"
At this point, I assume the Politician has dropped the ball.
Then her teacher says: "Sounds like you had a fun day yesterday! Did you get a lot of shopping done?"
Uh....yeah.....why would the Politician tell you about that? Hmmm.....
The Dictator comes running over to me.....
The Dictator: "Hi Momma! I told my teacher all about my pinky eye! I told her you took me shopping and to see Santa instead of school! Hurray! It was fun" and then the Dictator runs away with her friends. Sigh.....
