My nine year old son spiked a fever late last week. I mean a real fever. 104.9. And he looked even worse than that. The poor kid looked terrible. He didn’t even want to read the Hardy Boys or play video games. And I’m not even mentioning all the coughing which led to the throwing up. OK, I mentioned it but I didn’t get graphic about it. And I could. Oh boy, I could get seriously graphic. I’m thinking about getting rid of all the carpets in the house and seeking therapy for post traumatic vomit disorder.

So now he’s on an anti-biotic and the reversal has been wonderful. After three days on the stuff he’s almost back to normal. So much so that yesterday he asked to play football in the backyard. I was so happy to see that he wanted to play so I said yes.

So it was the six year old and me against the nine year old and his eleven year old sister. We lost. I’m not pointing fingers but my teammate wasn’t all that into sharing the ball. She kinda’ saw me as her own personal blocker. Every huddle she came into and said, “Dad, I think the alone play.” The alone play means I never see the ball and she runs behind me all the way to the fence.

Anyway, at the end of the game I announced that we had to go in and clean up the kitchen from dinner. All of a sudden, my son coughs and looked at me desperately, saying, “You know Dad, I have walking pneumonia. I think I should lie down.”

Everyone started laughing. It was great to have him back. As we went in he said, “I have walking pneumonia, not cleaning pneumonia.”

This started everyone laughing again. And they even laughed while they cleaned up the kitchen.

*subhead*Cleaning.*subhead*