The daycare called yesterday. With caller-id, I know who they are before I pick up. I always cringe a little before I pick it up. It could be simple. It could be complicated.

Sometimes when they call, he’s bumped his head or gotten a scrape on the playground. These are simple calls. In fact, generally I don’t want to know about them unless they’re going to tell me he’s being rushed to the emergency room. He’s two and a half and a boy…he’s going to get bumps and scrapes. I understand liabilities so I don’t complain when they call – usually I just sigh with relief because these are the simple calls.

They also call when he gets in arguments with other children. When they call to tell me he’s been pushed over or bitten, truthfully, I don’t care as long as it doesn’t happen every day and no skin is broken. I am a fairly easy parent to get a long with because I know that toddlers are going to push and they are going to bite.

Now, my little angel wouldn’t push or bite another child. I’m laughing my head off at that statement. It’s funny. No matter how many times I tell myself that it’s normal, I find the reverse call to be a little humiliating. There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s a twenty minute drive to the daycare from where I work and by the time I got there he wouldn’t remember why I was lecturing him about biting anyway. The teachers do a great job at lecturing for me. Still, it’s different when it’s your child. My husband thinks it’s hilarious that I barely blink if someone bites him, but I’m practically in orbit when I hear he’s bitten someone else.

The last call is the worst. It’s the “something is wrong with your son” call. Generally, they’ve taken his temperature and he’s too hot or he’s throwing up… We’ve been very lucky because my son has been extraordinarily healthy. (I’m knocking on every piece of wood I can find…even fake wood.) We haven’t been to the doctor for anything other than his checkups in a year and half.

Today was one of those bad calls. My son had woken up and he started crying. They couldn’t get him to stop and they didn’t know why. He felt a little warm, but they couldn’t get him to stay still to take his temperature and the teacher was afraid to get him too agitated. My first instinct was to get in the car and go get him. I could hear him crying through the phone. They told me that they were going to go outside and he loves to go outside so maybe he’d quiet down. I called my husband to see if he could take off early and he said he would, but we should call back in fifteen minutes to see if going outside solved the problem. He’s always my voice of reason. When I called back, they said he wasn’t his normal self, but they thought he could wait until his normal pickup so I didn’t go get him. I wanted to though.

When I picked him up he was fine. Running around and playing with the other children. I tried to question him about his crying, but all he would tell me was that he wanted his mommy. There is an ego boost.

At dinner, he told me his teeth hurt. It wasn’t stopping him from eating though so I decided it couldn’t be that bad. After dinner, I coaxed him into letting me look and I found the problem. It looks like he bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to make it bleed. It must of hurt pretty bad at the time and that’s why he was crying. His two year old vocabulary didn’t extend enough to tell the teachers what was wrong. What a relief.