Well, congratulations.

Last week, while C43 was in Arizona, Q6 was sick. Stay at home sick. Sleep all day sick. I think it was Fifth's Disease, or "Slapped Cheek" disease. Also knows as "Butterfly Pox" because of those cute pink butterfly wings on the cheeks. Relatively harmless.

This is her in one of her rare, awake moments:

But by Wednesday she was well enough to start to worry about going back to school. A substitute was slated for Thursday. I could have kept her home one more day, and if she'd had any bit of a fever I would have. But she didn't, and most of her stress was 1) not wanting kids to ask her where she'd been and 2) the dreaded substitute.

The kids, we tried to give her strategies for coping. Don't answer them. Tell them a crazy story, such as "My dog flew to the moon and I had to chase her!" Q6 didn't go for that because we don't have a dog. That's the only reason. OK. She was obsessing over this, but eventually she decided on the "ignore" strategy. But the substitute was still worrying her.

All Thursday morning she yelled, screamed, used passive aggressive tactics to not get dressed, not eat breakfast, not come downstairs,  not put her shoes on, etc. But eventually we got out of the house and started walking the long slow walk to school.

She cried the whole way. She yelled, she moaned, she dawdled. At one point we saw a neighbor, and  Q6 hid behind me.

While walking up we had the following conversation after doing some ranking of people she hated most. I came in a cool third. Until this.

Q6: If you make me go to school I'm going to hate you most of all!
Me: You can't hate me most, you said I was in third place. So you hate two people more than me.
Q6: Well, congratulations. Now you're in first.

Excellent use of sarcasm.

Later that night I was snuggling her to sleep and she said to me, "Mumma, I think we are too close." I, thinking she meant I was physically too close to her, was confused because I wasn't even touching her, and usually she is a snuggler right up on you. So I gestured the space between me and Q6 and said "But, Q, look" and she said "not HERE" pointing to the space, "HERE" pointing to her heart, "I miss you too much when you are gone.I miss you when I'm at school."

Aw, sweet, I'm savoring that moment. As a result of that conversation I set an alarm on my phone to go off when Q6 is in line for lunch. So when the alarm goes off at 10:45 am every day I think of Q6.