Mog the Malingerer?

Hmmm.

She does have a chest infection, this much is true. As I was getting her ready for school this morning she started crying at the very idea of going - not her usual state of mind when school is concerned. Still thinking she wasn't that poorly, I started writing a note in her home/school communication book "Mog has a chest infection and has started antibiotics. She is quite tired and a bit twitchy, and seems to be a bit miserable this morning". At which point it occurred to me to wonder why exactly I was sending a sick child into the classroom. So, she didn't go.

A quiet morning with lots of low level seizure activity and some children's television. Friends visiting for lunch - a second slightly not-quite-right child on antibiotics but not desperately ill either. We angled them carefully so they could see each other and us but neither splutter in each others' faces nor sneeze in our soup.

Mog silent and twitchy still for most of the afternoon but, in a reversal of her more recent pattern, cheered up mightily at 5 and had clearly worked out it was Rainbows tonight. I'd promised to be a second adult, so off we went.

One very very happy little girl joining in with all the others, grinning and giggling and trying to kick the leaders. We missed Rainbows last week as we had the school trip to Paulton's Park. The week before, Mog was sent home from school early as worn out and unwell - but cheered up again in time to get to Rainbows. Hmmm - so was this a ploy to play on her illness and conserve her energy? She does do this; when we go on holiday she sleeps through the boring bits and wakes as soon as we get to anything she might be interested in, checks it out, decides whether it's worth being interested in or whether she should just go back to sleep, and then slumbers on until we find something else which might be exciting.

It wasn't a ploy - halfway through the evening of parachute games, Mog decided to cough up a lung, and the Rainbows got initiated into the wonders of a suction pump. It didn't seem to put any of them off. Now she's miserable again; I've just given her all her evening meds, extra painkillers, a tummy rub and a stomach empty. She remains beside herself and will do I suspect until the sedatives kick in once again.

So, today she is ill and possibly should have skipped Rainbows - although she definitely enjoyed most of it. But this habit she has of switching off to save energy for the good things in life, I think it's a good one. I'm not so convinced about skiving off school though! We need to find a balance.

And, as I listen to her wind up for another evening of screaming I do wonder whether she could somehow save the energy she spends doing this to see her through Rainbows instead...

Tia