Embracing the Melodrama

Lately Mark, the most energetic kid in America, has been droopy.

Selectively droopy.

When it's time for math, he's exhausted.  He doesn't feel well.  He didn't get enough sleep.

When he's practicing the piano and I tell him he needs to play the song correctly (such a horrible mother, I know), he is suddenly seized with pain and agony.  He can't possibly continue playing.  He needs to lay his sorrowful head on the piano keys.

Cleaning his room is completely overwhelming...just might cause chronic fatigue.  Everything is so hard when you're seven and your name is Mark.

Sitting in church, he becomes so terribly sick that he's sure he either needs to be taken home immediately or die.

One morning Mark told me (after he'd been running and playing and laughing with Braeden) that he was so sick.  He'd had such a bad night.  He'd had no sleep because his stomach ached all night.  (This information coincided with me sitting down to get ready to start school.)

I took him on my lap.  I said, "You do feel a little warm." (He didn't.)  He sniffed mournfully and said, "My throat does hurt too."  I comforted him and acted impressively concerned and saddened by his poor health. (I wasn't.)

I sent him to his bed and told him that he'd better just go back to bed and try to recover from his sickness.

He said, "Well, I'm feeling a little better..."

"Oh, no, Mark.  I don't want you to feel sick.  You rest.  Poor baby."

He trudged to his bed.

After a few minutes he called, "Can I get up?  I'm feeling better."

I hesitated.  "Are you SURE?"

He said yes so I told him to empty the dishwasher.  He said that his throat hurt.  I said, "You're either in bed or emptying the dishwasher."

He put on his cloak and told me he was a Jedi and went downstairs.  By the time he reached the dishwasher I think he was healed because he was chatty.

It's a miracle cure:

Too much sympathy.  And the boring prospect of a bed.