the weekend of (mostly) thwarted expectations

The weekend started off well. Thomas mixed up a healthy batch of "dirt soup" Friday night.

Kate was in for the evening, due to an infraction the previous weekend, and we had a pretty good chat. This semester she is helping in a first-grade class every afternoon, and Friday night she told me all about the kids and the things she's been doing with them and how some of them like to hug her and hang on her... I guess there is a boy in the class who is tube-fed and wears a backpack that carries his bag of food (Kate couldn't remember what the name of his condition is), and another boy with Tourrettes. This is the same teacher that Henry was mainstreamed with last year, so I asked if Mrs. C gets all the special needs kids. But Kate said no-there are some in other classes. I get so caught up in my own little "special needs" world that I am surprised to hear there are so many others in the same school district!

Saturday was the big day for Henry and Daddy. You might remember that back in the spring we tried to go to our college football team's open scrimmage... and it was a disaster. Every other idiot (ooops, I mean fan) in town was trying to take their kids to the stadium for $5, and we couldn't find a seat. That day we decided to get tickets to a game this fall so that Henry could go and have a better experience.

Once you understand what happened in the spring, you'll see why Saturday went the way it did: kickoff was at noon. Bill and Henry got there around 11, allowing enough time to walk around and check out the crowd. But Henry was single-minded. He had a ticket this time and he had a seat, and by God he was going to sit in that seat and not move from it:

Here he is talking to me on the phone, sitting in the stadium an hour before kickoff.

I think all the pre-game stuff went ok, and the pre-game band show was the main thing Henry wanted to see anyway. Then it started to rain. And wet clothes are a sensation that Henry is very adverse to. So once they got rained on and he wanted to take off his clothes, it was time to call it a day. Our team hadn't even scored yet (they went on to win, 20-2.)

Bill knew, going to this experiment, that it might not last long. And he has learned from years of experience with Henry how to handle occasions like this. So although he was disappointed to leave without Henry experiencing a touchdown, he wisely just went with the tide. Henry will remember it as a really special and exciting experience, and Bill was able to finish watching the game at a bar down the street, so all's well that ends well.

Tommy had been asking to go to the zoo, and I was looking forward to going on Saturday, just me and him- something special while daddy and Henry were doing something special. Thomas wanted to sleep a little extra Saturday (clue #1), then when he got up, he said "I have a yucky cough like M------". A boy at L's house had developed a barking cough last week, and Tommy had indeed caught it from him.

He still wanted to go to the zoo, so we did. Now usually Henry is our tour guide and drill sergeant: dictating which animals we will see, and how long we will look at them. Either because he was sick, or because he is used to his big brother being the boss, Tommy had no real direction to offer at the zoo. He didn't seem to care what we looked at. He did get to sit on all the photo-op animal statues that we usually blow past, and walk on a lot of low walls. But the reptiles and the coral reef were the only sights that he really requested.

When we returned home from the zoo and gathered on the couch to catch up with Kate and Henry, Thomas rolled his face over between 2 cushions and vomited. His fever went up to 102+ and his cough and sore throat worsened.

So the rest of the weekend was spent worrying and comforting and taking his temperature and trying different medications. We're seeing the doctor this afternoon, but of course his fever seems to be gone today. His voice, though, is totally shot! He can only whisper. It's very odd to have my usual chatterbox be so silent.

His first day of preschool is Friday, so hopefully he'll be back to normal by then. Tune in next weekend for a full report.