Unfinished Homework

Miles was sick last week: sore throat, headache, low-grade fever, so he missed 3 days of school; peed on our good leather sofa twice with the excuse of being too sick to get up and go to the toilet; had his fair share of Wii, Lego, and reading time; and otherwise enjoyed himself once the Advil started coursing through his slender little veins. This morning we had some re-entry problems.

My mother was visiting from the much warmer place that she calls home, and Alec had his 5th birthday party Sunday that went very well. But Miles doesn't like it when he isn't the center of attention. And he really doesn't like it when his brother gets all kinds of presents that he wants for himself. And he really really doesn't like it when, do to extreme procrastination, he has to sit at the kitchen table after the party to finish his homework, while Alec gets to play with his new toys.

To make a long, audibly taxing, shrill story short, he didn't do his homework. This morning, he spent 5 minutes on it, but his heart wasn't in it, to say the least. This morning I took him to school so I could talk to his teacher. Miles had the body language of a boy going to his execution. I felt terrible for him. He sat right at his desk and busied himself with the work on his chair while the assistant teacher and I spoke in hushed tones, and the word consequence was bandied about. He gave me a little rabbit kiss as I was leaving, and I could feel his nerves. In any case, I had to dash off to Alec's conference so I couldn't stick around to watch the other shoe drop.

OTHER SHOE: The pediatrician just called me while I was writing this post to say that Miles does in fact have strep. poor guy. So he's headed home again.

When I got home from work Miles was furious. "I had to waste time in the nurses office waiting for Yenny, when I could have been eating lunch with my friends!" To which I appoligized. Miles then said, "I just want to go to school!" which I took as a very good sign that he enjoys it so much.

Update: April 3
However, the next day and for the a total of a week, Miles had to stay home popping Amoxycillan, Advil, and Alec. The latter, was his scapecoat for feeling so bad. But Alec got a few pops in at Miles, and we almost had full blown war on our hands. Thankfully, Miles and Alec are both in school today! I hope that peace will reign again.