He lost his swing

This past Sunday we had plans to go to church, then head to the community wading pool to let Eli and our friends’ daughter splash around together. As we were leaving for church Eli, with a pathetic frown on his face said, “I’m sick.” Jav and I both thought it was a ploy to stay home, so we took his temperature, and as we suspected, no fever. Eli was acting tired on the way to church, so we decided to watch the service from the simulcast in the lobby area (our church is cool like that). Eli sat on my lap and immediately fell asleep. We canceled our plans and spent the next two days taking care of a sick, sick boy. He was puking, complaining of a headache and maintained a low-grade fever. At one point we were both covered in puke so we got in the bathtub together and he actually fell asleep with his head on my leg, poor thing. Monday we decided to take him to the doctor, where we discovered that he had an inner ear infection, which was most likely what was causing his nausea. I went in to work for a few hours while Jav took him home to get his first dose of medicine and a good nap. His nap ended up lasting from 3 p.m. until 7 a.m. (16 hours!). He woke up this morning acting like his good ‘ol self, however, when we ventured outside, there was one problem.

You see, Eli has become a good little golfer. Nearly every day for the past month or two he asks to go outside and hit balls. We watch in amazement as he strikes the ball with force and it soars into the air, usually landing in the neighbor’s yard across the street. Jav and I run after the balls and hit them back to him like we were his personal caddys or something. I usually use a kid-sized club, and you can imagine my surprise when I returned the ball, using only my right hand, and Eli shouts out, “Both hands on the club, Mom!” I digress. This morning, I knew Eli was feeling better when he asked if we could go outside to golf. I of course said yes and outside we went. Eli swung and swung and swung at the balls and, while he hit most of them, the majority were just plopping down a few feet in front of him or he was shanking them to the left or the right.  He kept trying, and trying and trying, but then, in one moment of frustration he crumbled to the ground and exclaimed, “I lost it! I lost it!” Confused, I resonded with, “what did you lose, Eli” and he said, “I lost my SWING!” Yes, two days out of practice and Eli lost his golf swing. Oh the tragedy.