I have a friend (a real friend this time) who's daughter is about 2 years older than Andy. These two kids are remarkably similar in their attitudes, perceptions on life, pickiness, and sense of humor and suprisingly, they get along great.

Anyway, not too long ago, my friend had to fly off to California for family matters. Her daughter complained that her throat hurt, but other than that, the kid was fine. I want to say the kid vomited once, but that was only a minor speed bump in her day. The parents threw the kid on the plane with the rest of them and went to California.

Two weeks later, as they were preparing to leave California, the daughter vomited again. And told everyone her throat hurt a bit. And again, everyone ignored her because again, it was a minor blip in her day's activities.

When a child like Andy says his throat hurts or his tummy hurts, you have to put into context that this is also the kid who dramatically falls over when his baby brother pokes him with his pinky finger - "Mom, Paul pushed me down." In other words, you roll your eyes and keep plodding forward in your day.

So a couple days after my friend returned home, her daughter said again that her throat hurt. And she had a rash breaking out on her chest. If you knew my friend, you could picture it right now - the hand slamming on the counter and the shrill "for the love of all creation, fine, let's go to the after hours clinic."

Only to get scolded by the after hours physician that she should pay more attention to her child's health because as it turns out, the daughter had strep throat so bad and for a while now, it was borderline scarlet fever. Hence, the rash.

When my friend called to tell me this, I mentally filed this under the category of "When People Shake Their Heads at Your Maternal Instincts." I empathized with her, truly I did. My kids pull this all the time. Rachel once ran a 103 fever for 4 days before I finally hauled her hiney into the doctor because she had no complaints other than a bit tired. And it was strep throat. And the pediatrician looked at her throat and said (and I quote), "How is your throat not hurting when you swallow? It looks awful down there."

After telling Andy on Friday morning to buck up because he didn't want to miss the track meet, I finally started to believe him as he lethargically sat in my lap and watched his friends run around while waiting for their respective events. Then at the end, when he was shivering, feverish and puky, I sighed and rolled my eyes and and said we'd go to the doctor on Saturday morning if necessary.

It was necessary. And the good doctor walked into the room, and said (without even examining my kid yet), "That kid looks streppy." He was delighted to discover the swab test proving him right; delighted because the good doctor can identify streppy kids without even looking in their throat.

Ah yes. Another raging case of strep throat (albeit not quite scarlet fever). And another file for the category of "When People Shake Their Heads at Your Maternal Instincts."