Reading: Catching up on my stack of Entertainment Weeklys.

Buddy Boy

9:30 a.m. Daniel has a new swimming instructor, a young man named Kevin with hair like hedgehog quills. Ch'han, the instructor he had before, is teaching the level 1s. Daniel took to Kevin right away and came away from the lesson talking excitedly about moving up to level 3 soon.

Our friends Denise and Tom were sitting on the bleachers when Daniel and I arrived. Their children, Moses and Jasmine, are in the session before Daniel's. I was telling them about Daniel's initial fear of the water, and Tom remarked that Moses was afraid at first too, but soon became overconfident. "The scariest time was right before he learned to swim, but thought he was invincible." Tom said. A little fear can be a good thing, I guess.

I woke up around 3:30 this morning and couldn't fall back asleep. I decided to get up and work for a bit on a set of revises that are due soon. Daniel started coughing around 4:00. The coughing went on and on until I took up some cough medicine to him. This morning at 8 I called the doctor's office and set up an appointment. I'm going to pick him up at school at 12:30. Stephanie will be staying with the twins.

4:30 p.m. The pediatrician's office wasn't as crowded this afternoon as it was yesterday morning, and we didn't have to wait long. This place is big! There were over a dozen examination rooms. We're used to a smaller outfit.

A nurse took a history; of course, our records from HIP are still in limbo. A few minutes later the doctor arrived. He was a tall, thin man about my age with a breezy, offhand manner. "How ya doin', buddy?" he asked Daniel. "Up on the table, buddy boy."

He checked Daniel's ears, lungs, and throat, and then said he wanted to do a throat culture for strep throat. In five minutes he was back with the news that the test was positive. I remember when it used to take a day to get the results back from a throat culture.

"No school for you tomorrow, buddy boy."

"Yeah!" said Daniel.

"And no swimming lesson tonight either," I reminded him, puncturing his bubble.

Back in the car, I called Tab's office and left a message on his voice mail to fill him in. Then I called Daniel's school to tell Miss Pat, the school's director, that Daniel has strep and would not be attending school tomorrow. Actually, since Daniel's been sick for nearly a week, he is probably long past being contagious, but I didn't feel like arguing the point.

Then we drove to the Press to drop off my latest set of revises, and to CVS to drop off the prescription for Cefzil, and to Daniel's school to drop off the tuition check. Daniel fell sound asleep before we had driven even a few miles.

I'm glad we finally know what was wrong with him. The symptoms certainly weren't obvious.

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