THE NEGATIVE REACTION

I was expecting so much. . less

When my son showed up on Wednesday, I figured his visit was going to be a lot of the same old b.s. Sleeping in until noon, playing video games all day and only wanting to eat at McDonald's and go to R rated movies. I decided to plan out all four days to avoid such nonsense and make sure he was completely burned out by the time he left on Sunday. Things went better, but not at all as I had planned.

DAY 1

Pretty much what I had expected. Told him several times what we were doing all four days, in grave detail. I tell him we're going to ValleyFair at 10am, be ready to go Wednesday morning. I get a call about 10am telling me, "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad, I'm really tiiiiiiiiirrrrrrreeeeeeddddddd, can I sleep in a little later?" I knew immediately what this meant. No ValleyFair, maybe a movie later and dinner out. Fuck me, here we go again. I fault a lot of people for this happening. Number 1 his Mom for not getting on his ass and telling him he needs to get up early tomorrow morning. Number 2, my son for acting so disrespectful in the first place. that shit would NEVER EVER go with my parents. I started having those old feelings this was going to be another useless visit. I'm a man with a great intuition, the rest of the day would bear out my gut feeling.

Almost over before it started

Instead of going to ValleyFair (it was too late) I decided we'll just grab a movie and then go home for dinner. After the movie (SALT) which is one of the worst movies I've ever seen btw, I started telling him we would go to VallerFair tomorrow if it didn't rain. This is when the whinny, cry-baby tones started from him. "Daaaaaaaad, I don't want to go to ValleyFair, I don't want to go to the racetrack tomorrow with Grandma and Grandpa. I just stopped dead, since I was already pissed about how this visit had already started, I just looked at him and said, "Well then, why the fuck did you even bother coming? You KNEW what was going on, you're here to spend time with your family, if you don't want to do this, then I'll drop you off with your Mom tonight." To which I got the fifteen year old response, "Fine with me." It was a quiet ride home, and then I told him he was going to have to break the news to his grandmother why he wasn't staying.

The long meeting.

We spent almost an hour at my Mom's place talking about what was going on and why he was acting like he was. We agreed on some plans going forward and then we went home to catch dinner with his sister and step-mom. It was a close call, and I simmered down a bit after it was all over. Tomorrow would be a new day.

DAY 2

Once again, he slept in late and we decided we would run some errands and get some stuff he needed before going back home. It was a better afternoon. We talked about a lot of stuff and I finally felt like we were bonding like a father and son should. I opted out of the horse racing trip, but he said he had a blast. He didn't get home until 10:30pm and we chatted about how good of a time he had. I really felt like things had turned around.

DAY 3 - EXTREME WATER SLIDE

I told him didn't have a choice on Friday. We were going to the waterpark and he needed to shake his ass out of bed by 9:30am so we could get there on time. We got there and had a great time the first half of the day.I never thought I could walk so many stairs and still keep up. After we lunch we took a break and decided to ride some of the slides again.

We were riding a two-person raft right away and were having a great time. We were really pushing the envelope, he was leaning forward, getting the raft to go faster and having a great time. Then, he decided he wanted me up front and he would ride in the back. Fair enough. I was leaning forward right as we were coming out of a dip and into a turn. I must've been leaning too far forward. The raft lurched up the side and dumped us both out. I heard a loud "thud" behind me as I was spinning and sucking in water and tumbling toward the end of the ride. The ride spit all three of us out and I could tell he was hurting. He said he couldn't move his arm and his shoulder hurt. All I could see was a small red dot on his shoulder where he must've landed. A lifeguard came over and asked if we needed help and finally told us to go the first-aid station. I asked him if he thought we needed to go the hospital and he said, "yeah". By the time we got out to the car, I could tell he was in a lot of pain. When I went to put him in the car, his collerbone was really swollen up, and black and blue already. I knew then it was bad.

Hospital, X-Rays and the final verdict

After a few calls to Bren and his Mom, we got to the ER, got him x-rays and the doctor came in after a few minutes to give us the verdict. Broken collerbone, right in the middle. He gave us some Vicodin and an immobilization sling to keep his arm in the proper position. Karis (his mom) took it all in stride. As a former athletes, we both had our knocks and broken bones. He was pretty pissed. No LAX for 6 weeks. Tomorrow was the going away party, my birthday party and my parents 42nd Anniversary all rolled into one party. We were supposed to play golf, but it wasn't going to happen now.

The big party

Nothing much to say about the party other than everybody had a great time. We took lots of pictures, had Famous Dave's catered in and told some great stories. It was nice to have my son spend some time with his extended family.

Sunday. . the last day for two years. .

All in all, the visit I thought went better than I expected. He spent time with his little sister (she adores him) and he had a great time with his nieces when they went to the race track on Thursday night. In my next post, I'll talk about my feelings when he left and what to look forward to in the future.