Day 27: Saturdaze

Last night was hard. Not the hardest I've experienced as a parent, certainly, but hard nonetheless. Sabrina wakes up in pain and doesn't respond to requests to drink, take medicine, etc. Since we are all in close quarters, nobody gets a lot of sleep.

Luckily, we got to have a pretty slow start this morning. Obviously, Sabrina was not up to her soccer game, so we had a slow morning of reading, snuggling, snoozing, passing the baby back and forth, etc. etc.

Finally, after a few snooze/awake cycles, we got food ready for the family and got Edgar dressed and out to his game.

Edgar has been such a help to his parents, a support to both his little sisters, and a prince of a boy lately, I hate to complain, but...

Edgar never really showed up to the soccer game today. He mostly wanted to snuggle/hug me on the sidelines. On the field, he was only vaguely aware that a soccer game was going on around him. He would follow the ball and other kids at a distance, and would be surprised if the ball would roll past him. I think I saw him lazily wave his foot at the ball once. He wouldn't hear his coach or his dad yelling his name, and generally stared off in the distance most of the game.

I hate to complain, because I know one of my older siblings will chime in and say "you were quite the space case when you were Edgar's age", and it's true. I was a bit of a space cadet and there were moments where the world inside my head was so vivid that I didn't pay attention to the world outside my head. But not for an entire game. I was never this bad.

I want to be a good parent and encourage the things he does well in soccer. Occasionally, I will see flashes of brilliance. He's a naturally talented and smart kid. When his mind is on soccer, he can be one of the best kids on the team. BUT, his mind was on soccer exactly 0% of the game today. I couldn't find anything really to compliment him on. Here's a picture of him making a goal kick. I could say "good job at kicking the ball, dude"... but he basically had to be put there by his coach, told to kick the ball, and he didn't much care where he kicked it. Two times I can think of, he kicked it right to the other team's players, then watched them dribble the ball immediately past him, as if he were surprised those kids in green weren't on his team. Once, Edgar was spacing out so badly, he was supposed to make a goal kick, and another kid from his team got sick of waiting while the coach yelled for Edgar and ran up behind him and made the kick for him. The coach was visibly relieved.

 Anyway, I want to be a good encouraging parent. I don't want to discourage Edgar from playing soccer, because I think it does really good things for him, and teaches him to work with a team and listen to a coach, and all sorts of important life skills. And he tells me he LIKES soccer (at least when his dad isn't yelling at him), but I just can't. I can't be supportive when there's nothing to support. Today there was nothing to support.

...and maybe this is coming out today because I'm not feeling well. We didn't much get out of the house except for Edgar's game. I felt bad for how I treated Edgar during the game, so we came home and (after making sure Sabrina was well stocked with ice cream and fudgesickles)  played video games together. We had a real fun time during that, and I hope he forgives me for my grumpiness during his game.

Meanwhile, Sabrina got restless and tired of watching ponies all day, so she wore her soccer shirt just because she was jealous.

Jen made us a yummy dinner, and then I took a screaming Betty for a while as Jen saw to Sabrina's needs. I ended up passing out on a chair in the living room. Apparently, I was running a fever because I was shivering with sweat trickling into my ears but couldn't quite wake up to do anything about it. Yup, that's a fever.

Well, my sweet wife is taking care of Sabrina in her bed, Edgar because he won't leave Sabrina's side, and baby.

..at least I THINK that's what's in this picture she sent me. I can't really tell...

That leaves me relegated to finding someplace for myself to sleep tonight. Oh well. Jen is a super-mom and I'm glad she's picking up the slack today while I'm under the weather.