Baby’s Day Off

Isaac totally Ferris Bueller-ed me last Wednesday.

My son has been sick off and on all winter long with ear infections that just won’t quit. So when one of his teachers called from daycare to say he was extremely fussy – which I could hear loud and clear in the background over the phone – and pulling on both of his ears, all the ladies in his life agreed that another ear infection was probably in the works.

So I made my sheepish apologies at work, packed up some projects I could attempt to complete at home if Isaac didn’t insist on being cuddled the whole time, and got in my car, leaving the workaday world of downtown Baltimore for suburbia.

I expected to have an afternoon of clinging and crying and fevers and Pedialyte, chased by a round of phone calls to his pediatrician and ear-nose-throat specialist to set up the next available antibiotics-dispensing appointment.

What I got instead was a sunny afternoon at home with my son, who gladly played with his toys on the living room floor while I toiled away with my laptop in the recliner. He even took two peaceful naps. He only cried when he was hungry and stopped as soon as the bottle was produced. He all but rolled down the street singing “Twist and Shout” atop a parade float. Let’s call it “Isaac Lunday’s Day Off.”

He wasn’t sick after all. But just like Ferris Bueller and his faux clammy hands, Isaac sure did a thorough job of convincing everyone who knows him best, from seasoned professionals with degrees in early childhood education to his ever-loving mother.

He’s not even 11 months old, but Isaac has already faked his first illness in order to get out of school and spend the day at home as a young man of leisure. Ike has so much to learn, from how to eat food that isn’t pureed into a slush to crawling, but he’s grasped a critical lesson at a tender age: Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.