Crazy Heart Mama

I had a feeling that we’d all be paying a price for Colman going on his first Boy Scout campout and it turned out that feeling was spot on.

Colman had one overnight campout for his Boy Scout troop or den–Whatever–and he came home rundown, tired and sick.

One night.

I put a majority of the blame on Colman because he is absolutely maniacal when he’s with a bunch of boys his age. Even with Kevin on the trip, Colman had a hard time settling down to go to sleep. The problem is that once Colman gets rundown, he feels bad and is susceptible to catching something else. Liam is definitely cranky when he comes home from a campout, but Colman just can’t bounce back from something like that.

Kevin called me when they were on their way back to town and said, “I’m just warning you, but Colman doesn’t look good.” When they got home, Colman looked awful. I ran a hot, soapy bath for him and then put him to bed to “rest” for a little while to see if he would perk up a bit. Then we went to watch Liam play tennis. The matches started about 1:30, but we didn’t get there until close to three o’clock so we could watch the second half and give Colman a little more time at home to recuperate. (Colman was supposed to play tennis at 4:30, but there was no way that was happening.)

Liam won his matches, and then we hung out and cheered his team on as the rest of the players finished their matches. There was supposed to be some sort of awards ceremony after it was all over and we waited…and we waited…and we waited. We asked around, nobody knew what was going on and the coach had left. We waited a little while longer, standing around in the hot sun, listening to Colman’s cough getting worse.

Finally, I asked Liam, “Do you care if we leave before the awards? We need to get Colman home. He looks really bad.”

Liam was fine with leaving before the awards. And I’ve been home the last two days with Colman. He has had a fever and horrible cough. I took him to the doctor yesterday and it’s most likely “something viral.” So I’ve got him drinking plenty of fluids, taking Tylenol and Motrin when he starts to feel really crummy and doing breathing treatments when the coughing gets really bad.

Last night, I got a call from the tennis coach that Liam’s team is going to State, but that I needed to call him back ASAP.

(Let me just say, I feel he overuses ASAP. It’s on every phone message, every text message, and it really kicks my oppositional defiant disorder into overdrive. ASAP to me could mean three weeks, amiright?)

So I did call him back ASAP. And I really wish I hadn’t. He was calling to say that Liam was welcome to go to State with the team, but he was calling to “gauge our level of commitment” since we left before the awards ceremony on Sunday.

Well.

I cannot even tell you the level of restraint I had to use to not let him know exactly what I thought. I’ve had to exercise restraint so many times in the past that he’s lucky my restraint was in tip-top form because let me tell you the restraint I exhibited could’ve won a National Body Building Competition if such a thing existed.

I was told at the end of the conversation that I needed to fill out the tennis forms for State ASAP and let him know ASAP if Liam would be at the tennis clinic today at 4:20.

I haven’t done either. Instead I’m writing this blog to let you all know how we’ve been doing and how incredibly annoyed I am.

In other news, I Hate Piñatas: Surviving Life’s Unexpected Surprises won an IPPY Award for Best Adult Non-Fiction Personal E-Book.

Kevin asked me, “What’s an IPPY?”

“It’s kind of like the Pulitzer,” I answered. “Who the hell cares? It’s fun. My book won an award. It was judged by people who don’t know me and they gave it the gold medal.”

You know what else they said? I don’t have to be present to accept my award. I think the tennis coach could learn a little something-something from them. 🙂

You can read about the IPPY awards and other great Indie books here.