Getting “the call” to pick up a sick child a couple of weeks ago, was a first for me. While I didn’t love the idea of dragging two healthy children out in the cold, interrupting naps, pausing UNO by tracing the fanned cards in chalk so a cheater could instantly be spotted, there was something exhilarating about being needed, dashing off to save your child and being the one and only person who could comfort her.

That feeling quickly faded when the child’s ailments including, “my hip hurts when I laugh” were weak at best and I realized I had been played for a fool.

This morning, I found it a little odd when my five year old asked me to write our phone number down “with the dashes” should her teacher need to call me. Hmmm. I knew something was brewing but found my time was better served re-enforcing clasps on snow pants and trying to make the duct tape that covers the zipper on her coat look less like a brown piece of tape and more like a ski-lift ticket, while I explained the dashes were just breaks in the series of numbers she already had memorized and the teacher, should there ever be a need, would know where they went. I also explained that her teacher has our phone number in case she’s ever too ill to choke it out. This got a laugh and off we went to wait for the bus.

The phone rang (I guess I was expecting it) a couple of hours later and I was informed that my “sick” child had skipped over to the teacher complaining of a tummy-ache (more believable than giggling hip disease) but I wasn’t sure I wanted to give in just yet.

Thankfully, before I could blurt out, “My child’s a faker!” the teacher expressed her own opinion on the matter suggesting that we might just want to wait this one out before hopping in the car and saving the damsel in distress. Gold star teacher. Gold star.

I know there have been cases of a perfectly healthy child leaving the house in the morning and by noon they heave into a bucket in the principal’s office but aside from a cold, I think my daughter got caught up in the drama of her sister’s escape from math class last week and liked the idea of a few sympathetic pats on the back from the staff as they waved to her like a crowd at a ship leaving port.

I would expectedly hang my head in shame and take my licks for not being more in tune with my child’s non-verbal cues, dismissing her cry for help in the form of the placement of phone number dashes before sending her on the bus and climbing into my warm cream bath with my Tazo Chai (with soy), my soft music and great book because that’s what I do every day when the kids go to school. Wrong dream?

There is definitely a bug going around the school. It’s the call-home-hornet, buzzing parents between the hours of 8:30am and 3pm and the kids are the queen-bees calling the shots.

I questioned why my seven year olds highest marks on her report card were in drama.

Not anymore.