It is only Thursday, but it feels like it has been a long week.

Last weekend Jacob and I went to Weatherford with the Robotics Team for a tournament.  I hadn’t really planned on going.  Jacob has reached that point where he doesn’t need me and finds me a little bit embarrassing.  I don’t have to do anything to embarrass him.  I can just stand there and he’ll think I should be somewhere else doing something else.  Let me actually do anything.  Gah!

But last Tuesday Jacob asked to be picked up right after school because he didn’t feel good.  He came home at 3:15 and slept and when I checked him about 5:30 he was running a low grade fever that by 8:00 had gone to a high, more worrying fever.  Wednesday he still had a high, but not freak-out high, fever.  So, since I’d heard strep and the flu were going around his school, I made him a doctor’s appointment.  It was a little disturbing because Jacob is NEVER sick these days.

He had the Flu A virus.  It was an odd situation waiting in the doctor’s office talking with him about whether the Flu or Strep was the better disease to have.  With Strep, they can return to school 24 hours after they begin an antibiotic.  With Flu, they can return to school 24 hours after they are fever free.  So we talked about the virtues of each and the disadvantages.  We both came to the conclusion that Strep was better than Flu because you could sort of control when you began your antibiotic.  With the flu, even with the Tamiflu, you couldn’t control when the fever would leave and stay gone.

Jacob started the Tamiflu and almost exactly 12 hours after he started it, the fever was gone and did not come back.  I know because he had a scary high fever Wednesday night and I checked him about every hour through the night.  Because he had the scary high fever even with Motrin which as we all know is the fever KILLER.  My brother called (not the one who is a doctor), because he’d heard Jacob was sick.  He was advocating that I simply let the fever run its course and not give him any Motrin and said that as long as it didn’t go above some really scary high number it would be o.k.  I think I’m a pretty chill sort of Mom, but high fevers FREAK.ME.OUT.  I was having none of that.  I remember the days when Motrin was a prescription drug.  If you didn’t have any left from when the kids were sick before, you’d have to wait until the morning to call and have them call you in a prescription before your appointment because THE SCARY HIGH FEVERS.  So. While I appreciated my brother’s concern, I do not like the SCARY.HIGH.FEVERS.

As luck would have it, Jacob was well enough to return to school on Friday.  Just in time to climb on the bus at noon and go to Weatherford.  Since he’d been sick, I told him he could only go if I could go because I didn’t want him having a relapse and me being an hour or more away.  But I had a meeting from 1-4 which turned into a meeting from 1-4:30 and then I had to go back to my office before I could go home and pack so I didn’t even get there until after 7:00.

The Robotics tournament was at SWOSU Wellness Center.  It is a very nice facility but sitting around waiting for our teams to compete was a little…tiresome.  I talked to the other adults that were there with our team and stitched.  The Girls team kicked ass, winning lots of awards.  I’d be more specific but this was my first time at a Robotics event and I honestly didn’t follow much of what went on but they got their pictures taken a lot so I knew they did well.  So kicked ass is about as close as I can get.  The Boys team came in 7th overall, which isn’t bad with 36 or more teams competing, but not good enough to really win anything but an “atta boy!”

We started my granddaughter at a new Pre-School this week.  It is a place where Jacob went when he was small.  I’d recently come across a book they made for me with pictures and things he’d done while there that made my heart melt to remember when he was that small and had done such things.  The transition has gone smoothly.  She loves going to school.  The class is small and she seems to like it.  And I know I’m biased, but she is SO smart!  Everyone says so.

Since he’d been sick, and then was gone when he returned to school, there has been the make up school work to do.  It isn’t my job, but he likes for me to be available to….I don’t know.  Keep him company?  Type stuff up for him?  Offer moral support?  I don’t do the work for him, so it isn’t that.   So most nights this week I was sitting around with Jacob stitching while he worked.  Not bad work if you can get it and not a particularly unusual activity for me.

It may be because I have a heavy heart and know tomorrow is going to be a hard day.  A friend’s daughter died recently and the services are tomorrow.  There is nothing you can say or do under those circumstances but be there.  And hold your own children tight that night.