Laughter is the best medicine....

usually. As I type this, my son is laying in bed with an ice pack on his left eye and two motrin in his belly. A few moments ago he was crying about it all, now he is laughing. What made the difference?

We have had a pretty long weekend and we are both really tired. SGG, my son, and I left Friday evening to go skiing/snowboarding at Timberline Four Seasons Resort in West Virginia. It was looking to be an amazing weekend for it. The past week or so they have had close to 4 or 5 feet of snow dumped up there. For the mid-atlantic it is the best I have ever seen.

Brandon has never really picked up snowboarding, but keeps insisting it is what he wants to do. At 12 years old, and it being a small resort, I figured I'll just let him go by himself. He'll either figure it out or he won't. I've been putting him into snowboard camps and lessons for the last six or so years, and about all he has really wanted to do is eat snow and throw snowballs. I almost didn't take him this time because of it. He still doesn't want to follow protocol, doesn't want to lace his boots up correctly, and half a dozen other things, but he can make it up and down the mountain on his own, chewing his gloves the whole way, and can make his turns. He wants to do it his own way, and though it makes me a bit frustrated, at least he can do it on his own and I can go do my thing.

The first day (Saturday), at the arranged meeting time, we found him in the lodge, in the bathroom, crying and saying he couldn't breathe. He couldn't tell me what was wrong. After getting him dressed back up (still not sure how he got everything off if he was feeling as bad as he said), we got him to the first aid station. The paramedic looked him over, and he was looking just as pathetic as he possibly could. They couldn't find anything wrong, but did finally manage to get out of him that he hit a snow bank and fell on a chunk of ice. They put him on a little bit of oxygen. His nose was stuffed up so they had to put the tubes in his mouth. He would close his lips, suck on the hose, then open his lips and breathe out. I told SGG, and loud enough for Brandon to hear, that he looked like a fish trying to breathe air. Brandon when from pathetic looking to laughing...and wasn't happy about it. A few minutes later he was back to scowling. To show it, he had sucked the tube deeper into his mouth. On either side, the tubes came out and stuck out like whiskers. I then told SGG that he looked like a catfish now and he started laughing again.

I went and got the car to take him up to the house and before you know it he was fine again and playing with the rest of the kids.

He got in a lot more snowboarding on Sunday.

So how does this end with him and an ice pack tonight (Monday)?

I went to put him in bed at 7:30 since we had had a long and tiring weekend. My legs are killing me, and I was sick all weekend to boot. I still might be. He begged me to let him read for a little bit. I did. He is reading "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. One of the best science fiction books ever.

Around 8:30 I tell him lights out. He has to use the bathroom so I let him. He then has this bright idea to run around the house doing something with his lip. I tell him in increasingly irritated tones to get in bed. He runs to the bathroom to admire his lip trick in the mirror. I tell him again to get in bed and he just stands there. I reached in to provide some direction, because I feel at this point the near teen has forgotten where his bed is. He ducked to avoid my grasp and hit his eye brow on the counter. While I want to lecture him on how much better this would have turned out if he had only LISTENED to me in the first place, I instead get a washcloth and wet it down to put on his eye. I know it doesn't help much but usually it starts to make him feel better. I then get him moving toward his room (and his bed) and then returned with an ice pack and some motrin.

He is still crying at this point.

I tell him he can tell his classmates that "They should see the other guy, he had two of these". To which he starts laughing. He then asks, "how bad is it?" I tell him he doesn't want to know, but it will be better tomorrow. I then told him he can tell his friends, "I shouldn't have kissed that girl," and he starts laughing again. He has placed the washcloth over his entire face, including his mouth, with the ice pack on his eye. I tell him to move the wash cloth from his mouth. He says "Why?" I responded, "Do you have to do the opposite of everything I say? (he laughs) I don't want it around your mouth because I don't want to have to explain to your mom tomorrow how you suffocated just because I asked you to move it and you said no." And for some reason he laughs some more.

As I turned out the light, he mentions that this is going to suck tomorrow. I tell him that the good thing is that if he keeps the ice pack on it, it will suck less every minute from now on. To which he laughs again.