Fever Talk

Son D. got sick yesterday. He'd complained about being hot all day, but I kept saying, "Of course it's hot - it's summer" and proceeded to take him on long bike rides and walks throughout the day. Finally, he insisted that he was sick and I took his temp - 103. Yep, he was sick.

The fever spiked at 1 am. He and I were up together from 1 am to 3 am, talking. He wouldn't stop talking. He was in some feverish state that required constant conversation.

None of our conversations made much sense. He wanted to discuss NASCAR quite a bit, but I'm afraid I didn't have much to contribute.

We had a long discussion about how he was the smallest person in the family. Evidently, he doesn't like the fact that everyone laughs at him so much. He requested that we add someone else to the family - someone smaller than he is. I apologized and told him that just wasn't going to happen. I tried to explain that the reason we laugh so much is that he is so stinkin' cute (what with the pony-tails and enthusiasm for all things soccer), but he wasn't buying it.

Finally, we finished with a long discussion of what his life will be when he is a teenager. He is very much looking forward to being a teenager and has an almost utopia-like vision of what his teenage life will be. (I decided not to tell him about the bad parts - the zits, the insecurity, the cliques. We focused on the fun: He can watch PG-13 movies! He can play soccer every day with a real team! He can go to bed at 9 pm!)

As much as it pains me to lose 2 hours of precious sleep talking with a feverish 4 year old, I suspect these are exactly the moments I will miss when he is 14.

Until then, I'll just consume lots of caffeine. Yawn.