Nat has had two viral fevers over the past 3 weeks.  I’m not sure if this was a happy coincidence for him because he is now in the phase of really NOT wanting to go to school.

His last viral fever which ended last weekend was a pretty scary one. After three days of high fevers hitting close to 40 degrees, he woke up one day suddenly not being able to walk. He cried, clutched his calves, crawled out of bed and bawled his eyeballs out declaring that there was pain in his legs and “I CANNOT WALK!”

That was enough to frighten the s**t out of me because the last time I read about children who told their parents they can’t walk was when children were diagnosed with meningitis.

Thankfully, after the morning had passed, he gained some strength in his legs and by the time he was at the PD in the afternoon, he was all smiles. The doctor said he could have been lacking electrolytes in his body or dehydrated after an illness or perhaps going through growth spurts.

Well, whatever that’s not meningitis sounds great.

And this boy’s really just milking my anxiety and excessive mothering this entire week for as much as he can, occasionally dramatising his pain and saying he can’t walk and sniffing and coughing in more exaggerated ways than I can imagine so he can get away with not going to school.

So what’s a mother to say to a 4-year-old who’s gone through a pretty traumatic 3 days of high high fevers and an episode of “WAAAAAA…I CANNOT WALK! SO PAINFUL, MAMA, HELP ME!” that frightened the pores out of her?

She lets him have his way.

The last child gets away with all these, I tell you.