Sick? Or Tired?

Today when I picked L up from school, she told me she wasn’t feeling well, like she was going to throw up. Tuesday is ballet class day. There’s only 3 weeks left before the dance spring performance and her entire class will be effected if any of them miss practicing together. Missing class today was not an option, unless she was truly sick. We have about 45 minutes at home before we have to leave to get to ballet class. So we went home and I fixed her favorite snack and had her change into her leotard and fix her hair. I proceeded as though we were going no matter what. Of course, by the time it was time to leave, she had eaten her entire snack and was bouncing around the living room. When I asked her if she was feeling better, she said “I still feel like I’m going to throw up.” I figured that a bouncy, hungry girl was just fine to send to ballet.

This incident brings up a few issues for me.

• Why is it that she seems to not feel well every Tuesday afternoon? She seems to love ballet and has plenty of friends she only sees at ballet class. But she never seems to not be feeling well on Thursday afternoon, the day she has tap class. Does this mean that she doesn’t like ballet? Earlier in the year mentioned that it was getting hard. I told her that’s because she’s getting better and she’s going to be learning harder and harder things.
• I get to decide when I feel like/want to go to my classes. This week I’ve been fighting a nasty cold and I got bit on the hand by my dog. The day after the dog bite, I didn’t go to Pilates because I was still in a lot of pain and didn’t think I could do the arm work that involves holding a strap. Because there is an 18-hour cancellation policy at the Pilates studio, I already cancelled my class for tomorrow morning because I’m not sure how I’ll be feeling tomorrow morning. I suppose I can go anyway if I wake up in the morning and feel okay. Would I have cancelled these classes if I held myself to the same standard I hold L to?
• When I told L she had to go unless she actually threw up, she called me the worst mom in the world. I’m used to such pronouncements so this didn’t bother me. Is there any way to help her see that I don’t make these decisions willy-nilly? Two weeks ago during her ice-skating lesson, she fell and hit her head hard. She came off the ice crying. I immediately helped her out of her skates and hurried her to the car, where I called our doctor to see if she needed to be evaluated in the emergency room. The next week, she fell again, this time landing on her hip. Again, she came off the ice crying. These tears were different, less urgent. I comforted her for a few minutes before sending her back out on the ice. A man who doesn’t know us well said something to the effect of me being a hard-ass to make her go back out. Another mom who knows us through skating defended me saying that she was fine this week, whereas the week before she wasn’t necessarily fine. Somehow my mom intuition tells me when things are serious and when it’s time to “buck up” and keep going. Today seemed to be a “buck up” kind of day.
  

I’m sitting in the car outside the dance studio, watching the class. L is bouncing around and smiling with her friends. She seems to be feeling just fine. After class, I’ll ask her if she’s glad she went. I’m pretty sure she will be.