When I picked Penny up from daycare yesterday, the teacher warned me that one of the kids in the class had been confirmed as having come down with scarlet fever, so I should be sure to keep an eye on Penny, just in case she'd picked it up.

It's bacterial (a close cousin to strep throat) and Penny was just on a post-surgical preventative run of antibiotics, so I nodded and said I'd keep my eyes open, but that I was pretty sure she was safe.

This morning, Penny slept in.

I try to let her sleep in, when she wants to, for several reasons: For one thing, I'd like to encourage her to sleep later. Especially on weekends.

For another, she does not deal well with being woken up. It makes her cranky and contrary for quite some time. It's much easier to let her wake up on her own.

So I let her sleep. I got up, got dressed, went downstairs, made my lunch, took my medicine...

Scarlet fever, the Mutant Worrybrain whispered.

If she's actually sick, I said, then sleeping is good for her.

On the other hand, we were approaching 7am, and I've been trying to be out of the house by then, because it takes me a good forty-five minutes to get her to school and then to work. That doesn't include any time needed for the putting-on-a-coat drama, or the choosing-a-toy-for-the-car drama, or the getting-into-the-car drama.

And she might be sick, the Mutant Worrybrain said.

Oh, fine, I said, and went upstairs and into her room.

She was curled up on her pillow, snuggled under the quilt, her baby blanket tucked under her arm like a stuffed toy. (The actual stuffed toys had been shoved to the far corners of the crib.) She didn't even twitch when I opened the door.

Scarlet fever, the Mutant Worrybrain said.

Shut up, I'm going already.

I leaned over the crib and put my hand on her face.

No fever. Perfectly normal little-kid-under-a-blanket levels of warmth. Though of course, as soon as I touched her, she woke up.

It took me twenty minutes to wrestle her into clothes. She pitched fits over: her clean diaper ("No Bert! No diaper!"), her clothes ("No shirt! Don' wannit!"), her shoes ("Don' wannit!"), putting on a coat ("Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" "Daddy would make you wear a coat, too."), and picking out toys to bring in the car ("Three bears!").

Tomorrow, I don't care if she sleeps until 8, I'm not waking her up.

--Liz