Doing whatever it takes . . .
Monday morning dawned this week with its usual set of obstacles to overcome. Sleepy self, demanding dogs, and complaining children. But ironically this Monday stood out a little bit from all of the others. It appeared that my son woke up with a mind-blowing injury. An injury the likes of which the human world has never seen before. Except maybe once.
Anyway, on Saturday, my boy played a little bit of Wii Sports. Apparently, since he hadn’t played these games in a while, he strained his arms. I personally like to call it “Wii Elbow.”
There we were, in the kitchen, my boy and me. He’s all dressed and ready to go to school, even with his backpack and jacket on. And he turns on the tears and the sad face.
“Mommy, my arms hurts so bad.”
“Mommy, it’s my writing arm. I can’t even bend it.”
“Mommy, I just can’t go.”
So I sent him up to his room and sent his sister on to school on the bus. I then went upstairs to discuss this predicament I had now gotten my boy and myself in. Because seriously, I could not let him stay at home because he hurt his arm playing too many video games.
As I am sitting on his bed, trying my hardest to cajole him into going and wondering exactly who is the adult in this situation, I am overcome by a brilliant light bulb moment.
A bribe.
But not just any bribe.
Nope, no candy or legos or some other completely useless item. I tell him I will take him up to the local drugstore and get him an elbow brace. He immediately jumps on this magnificent idea and agrees that he CAN go to school with a brace.
Twenty minutes later, he’s walking in the school and I was able to go to work on time.
So this may not be my proudest moment as a mom but hey, he went to school. I’m going to consider this small moment a success.
