The exhausted dad: A sick day education

My kindergartner comes home every day in a state of pure exhaustion, as little 5 and 6-year-olds learn so much in their first year of full-time school. “All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten” didn’t become a bestselling book for nothing.

After a few months acclimating to the kindergarten routine, my son now tackles life with a true learning mindset. It was especially obvious on a recent day he stayed home from school because of (insert one of the 700 viruses circulating locally right now). He learned so many new things about his house and family… things he probably should have known about months or even years before.

The highlights of his sick day education:

The freezer

My son knows all about the freezer below the refrigerator in our kitchen. He likes to put yogurt tubes in there, and, occasionally, blankets and stuffed animals just to make them feel “cold.” Weird.

Anyway, my wife asked me to check something in our other freezer… the one in the garage. This revelation jolted my son out of his Children’s Tylenol stupor.

“WHAT? THERE’S A FREEZER IN THE GARAGE!?! WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THERE WAS A FREEZER IN THE GARAGE!”

“We’ve always had a freezer in the garage, buddy,” I replied.

He seemed genuinely angry. “YOU HAVE TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT EXTRA FREEZERS! IS THERE ICE CREAM IN THAT FREEZER?!”

Obviously, there wasn’t ice cream in the garage freezer. No ice cream gets left uneaten in this house.

Dad goes places too

Later in the day, I packed up my backpack and started to head out the front door to one of my classes. Typically, I leave for class after I drop the kids off at school, so my son thinks I just go home and wait for him to be done with school. Apparently, I don’t leave the house enough, because everybody in the family seems surprised whenever I say I’m leaving.

“Where are you going?” he asked me.

“I’m going to school, bud.”

He seemed confused. “Uh, I’m here. It’s a SICK DAY!”

“No, I’m going to my school.”

“WHAAAAAATTTT?!”

After some explaining, he calmed down and went back to watching “Molly of Denali.”

Brief aside: Go online and listen to the “Molly of Denali” theme song real quick. Haha, joke’s on you, because now you’ll have that earworm in your head until 2023.

Living with a germaphobe

Probably the biggest lesson my son learned on his sick day was just how paranoid his dad gets about germs. He spent a good chunk of his last couple years in pandemic mode, but now everyone in the family is back out there picking up every nasty little bug in the universe. I have my limits. And most importantly, I don’t want to be sick during Finals. I’m already bombing enough with a clear state of mind.

So, yes, I wore a mask around my 5-year-old as his hacked and snotted all over the house that day. He seemed a little confused, and if he made a comment about the mask, I went on my usual mini rant about personal hygiene.

You never forget the first time one of your children rolls their eyes at you. At age 5, my little kindergartner has truly learned his most important lesson to date: Dad is a little bit crazy.

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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student and parent to four kids, ages 5-11. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.