The Attendance Line

My daughter hasn’t been absent very much from school.  In fact, I’ve only had to call the attendance line a couple of times.  When I dial attendance,  I am greeted with a lengthy message detailing all of the information I need to give for my absent child: name, teacher’s name, date of absence, reason for absence, blood type… ok, not the blood type.   While these directions would be easy to follow for any normal human being, when I call in, it’s because there is something wrong with my kid.  This causes me stress and my brain goes a bit crazy under stress.

Case in point, last week, my daughter woke up with a stomach ache.  In addition to that, I was sick along with my son Dude. My head felt hazy.  I was dizzy on my feet and I had two sick kids to care for.  Here’s how my message went:

Me: Hi.  I’m calling in for my daughter.  Llama.  Its…..umm (pause when I try to find the date somewhere.  Can’t find it)…It’s Tuesday.  She is in Kindergarten.. oh wait, you needed her teacher.  Her teacher is Mrs. Dor and… is that all you need?  Uhhh… ya, I’m JoAnn. (speed up now because I realize how confused I sound)  OkBye.

Then we have yesterday.  Llama had a dentist appointment scheduled to get some cavities filled.  At this appointment, they use a sedative drink which makes her a bit loopy, so I’m already dreading this because I’m going to be the parent of a little drunk human for the next four hours. Here goes:

Me: (holding Dude in one arm)  Hi.  My daughter Llama will be (my car alarm starts going off)…. absent from school today.
(Woooo  OOOO Woooo Oooo Woooo Oooo)
She has a… (looking for keys to turn off alarm)
… a dentist appointment.  Today is…
(Hubby: (yelling) JO… THAT’S YOUR ALARM!)
… Thursday, May…(I’m next to the fridge. There is a calendar!) May 8th.  (Yes!  Nailed that one!)
Her teacher is (Woo OOOO  Wooo OOOO Wooo OOO)… Mrs. Dor.
(Where are my keys? Hubby: “JO!!”  Me: “I KNOW!”)
Anywho… Have a good day.

I push “END CALL.”  Sometimes, you just can’t recover and need to end it.  I wish I could say that these were two isolated incidents and do not represent all of my attendance calls – but I would be lying.  I need to see if the school has an attendance email, because this phone thing really isn’t working for me.

Like this?  Check out The Red Button or No Sick Days for Mommy.