License to Ill

Having spent the last five days kicked around by a particularly nasty flu bug, I’m ready to see some redeeming value in being ill. (This is how you know I really am sick: when I start seeing the good in bad situations. Someone call a doctor!)

If nothing else, my condition has arrested some of my tendencies toward overparenting. My eight-year-old son started third grade this week and I was unable to join him and his mother, and the rest of the neighborhood, for the traditional walk to school for the big day, nor was I able to be with him the night before at Meet Your Teacher Night. Also, he competed in a Punt, Pass and Kick Competition run by his flag football league, while I was home in bed watching Andy Griffith reruns and trying to get down yet another piece of dry toast. And here’s the utterly amazing thing: Everything seems to have gone just fine without me. He and his teacher hit it off; school is off to a good start; he won the PP&K contest.

These are probably useful lessons to relearn every now and then. That my kid, whether I’m there worrying over him or not, will probably do okay, and that his mom, in any case, seems to have things covered.

Now that I’ve duly noted my blessings, it’s back to the dry toast.