What Would You Do?

You have been looking forward to your annual weekend getaway with a good friend. The hotel rooms are booked and all of the arrangements for dining and activities have been planned. And then your kid gets sick. What do you do?

Friday morning one of my boys woke up with a really bad sore throat and extremely tired. He did not have a fever, but he clearly wasn't feeling well. I hoped that maybe it was just an allergy attack from the crazy pollen.

This normally wouldn't be such a big deal, except that this was the one weekend of the year that my sister-in-law had planned a whole weekend getaway in NYC for us. She took care of all the arrangements and we had everything planned and were so looking forward to it. But it was only for the two of us, which meant that not only would I be bummed if I had to stay home, but she would be going on this girl's getaway alone!

I waited 'til the late afternoon to see if anything changed with my son, at which point it was quite evident that my son had a cold. Ugh. How could I possible drop off a child with a cold to someone else's house for the weekend so that I could go gallivanting in the city? After all, I hate when someone brings their kid to my house and then I find out the kid has a cold and is spreading germs all over my home!

So I gave both my sister-in-law and my girlfriend who was going to watch the boys for the weekend a heads-up that I wouldn't know 'til the next morning whether or not I would have to cancel, because it would depend on how my son felt. I figured that maybe, just maybe, with a good night's sleep and some Niquil he could possibly wake up all better.

I didn't even pack, for fear of feeling even more miserable if I had to give up my weekend away and unpack that bag. Then I paced the house Saturday morning waiting for my son to wake up.

When he did, he seemed almost fine! For about 5 minutes. Then he started coughing. And had to blow his nose. A lot. And went right back to bed. And I new I wasn't going anywhere.

I told my girlfriend that my son did indeed have a cold, and she thanked me for telling her, because she would have worried all weekend that her boys would have caught the germs and also gotten sick.

So I cancelled my weekend away, and the boys and I stayed home. Leaving my sister-in-law all alone in that nice hotel room in the city...and also screwing up her plans for a great girl-getaway. The situation stunk all the way around.

In the end, my son felt noticeably better within 24 hours, but he did need a little TLC for the time he felt crappy, and, as a (single) mom, I really did feel like it was the right choice to be home with him so he could get the rest he needed in order to heal. There was just nowhere to send him, or no one I could have brought in to stay with him, while he was sick.

How would you have handled this situation? Have you ever sent a child with a cold over to a friend's house without warning the mom that germs were about to enter her house? Or are you like me...honest to a fault?