I hate when Michael is sick, because it's so difficult to make plans. Trying to gage how he's going to feel is always tough.Yesterday went entirely differently from how I thought it would.
Thursday night, Mike felt awful, and was blowing his nose every 5 seconds. I had made him go to school because he had a test and he wasn't running fever.
Yesterday morning, I let him sleep a little later than normal, and went in his room to wake him up. I told him he could stay home, but if he did it would be tough to make up all that work on Monday. For some reason his teachers always give him a ton of homework on Monday. He thought about it, and decided to go. I was glad to see that.
However, my deal with him was that if he needed me to pick him up at school, I would do so. Therefore I got to work a little late and then worked thru lunch, anxiously wondering if/when my phone would ring or I'd get a text telling me he wanted to go home.
Fortunately, my policy of letting him sleep a lot - and dosing him heavily with extra Vitamin C and Grapeseed Extract, which is rich in antioxidants - worked.
Finally, about 2:30, I texted Michael and he said he was OK and wanted to go to tennis.
As I was eating my late lunch, the Boss asked me to take a delivery to another office on my way home. I agreed, and thought to myself, how am I going to coordinate getting Mike to tennis if I am stuck in Friday traffic?
I got the delivery made, although I didn't use my new GPS. (I couldn't figure out how to turn it on. I need another tutoring session from Michael.) Then I got stuck on I-285. Fortunately, another parent helped me out with getting Mike to practice. He had to come home, change clothes, and eat a sandwich in the car.
For the next 9 weeks, until early April, Michael has tennis practice every day after school. The matches are on weekdays, too. I'm glad he made the team. It's just going to be very busy, trying to coordinate everything.
Michael and I started watching an interesting movie last night, 50/50. I couldn't figure out why it had an R rating, then about 5 minutes into it, Seth Rogan's character blurted out some really inappropriate things and I was just sitting there in shock. Michael, to his credit, said "What a jerk." See, this is why I don't censor what he watches too much, except for not allowing horror movies. Michael, at 15, is already pretty mature about a lot of things. Rogan's character in the movie made some more inappropriate remarks later, and Michael was disgusted. That's how it should be. Another kid would've reacted differently, perhaps, so I urge parents to not just lay down one blanket "No R movies" or whatever criteria. Judge each movie on its merits, and know your kid. Some movies get an "R" rating for no good reason.
It's too bad that stuff is in there because otherwise "50/50" is a sweet little movie, and funny [in spots, not a laugh riot.] It also features a young actor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is really fascinating to me. He's very talented, and he has the most interesting and expressive face. He acts without even seeming to act, which is the way it's supposed to be done.
Maybe I like him, too, because I can see Mike looking a bit like him in a few years...
