I’m a mean mom.
Although I let the kids stay up and watch the Raven’s win the Super Bowl Sunday night, I made them get up and go to school on time Monday morning.
Not so much a friend of mine. She let her son sleep in and sent him to school late with a note from her witty husband. Here is what it said:
To whom it may concern,
Peter was struck down last night with a case of purple fever. It last swept through Baltimore 12 years ago. Almost all of the body becomes covered in purple. At around 6:30 p.m., the “Tourette’s Syndrome” phase kicked in, where the victim has uncontrollable emotional outbursts. Worse yet, for over half an hour, Peter said he “couldn’t see anything” and “everything had gone dark.” When his vision returned he complained of feeling sick to his stomach. At 10:30, we took his temperature, which, in Celsius, was 34.31 degrees.
We thought it best to let him rest this morning. He’s now fine. To help him recover, we read to him from the New Testament — the Gospel of John, not the Letter of James.
No witty note needed here. My kids were actually early for school that day. And when they got home and asked if we were going to the parade Tuesday, it took me two seconds to answer, “ahhh, no.”
I am not the kind of mom who would consider bagging school for a parade. I’m a Ravens fan but that seemed a little crazy. I noticed on Facebook Tuesday, however, that I have a lot of crazy friends. While I was at work and my kids were at school, their families were all lining the streets of Baltimore or packed in M&T Stadium taking part in a little slice of history.
My kids didn’t argue when I told them we weren’t going to the parade. They never would have expected me to say yes anyway. I’m just not that kind of mom.
FranklyStein is a blog by Chesapeake Family Magazine editor Betsy Stein who lives in Catonsville with her husband, Chris, and four children, Maggie, 14, Lilly, 12, Adam, 12, and Jonah, 8.
