Stumbling in Flats

The Teenager had a rugby match on Sunday. After the snow thawed, the torrential rain came so we were convinced the match would be cancelled. A pitch inspection was due the day before and after the groundsman had waded through inches of mud, he declared the pitch good to play. Of course.

The Teenager had a lift with the trainer and off he went with his Lucozade and boot bag. Three hours later he was returned, a huge blob of mud standing on the doorstep.  The only un-muddy bit of him was a grubby bandage wound tightly round his wrist, which he held out sadly with a pained expression.

He’d only played for ten minutes (so who knows how much more mud he could have gathered if he’d played full time), as someone had trod on his wrist during a try and he was out for the rest of the game. Anyway, he stripped, I picked up the sodden clothes and chucked them in the machine as he squelched his way to the shower. Within ten minutes, there was a yell:

‘Muuuuuuuuuuuum!’

‘What?’

‘I’m in aaaaagony. But we won, 43-0.’

‘Glad you won! Ok, I’ll bandage it up, don’t worry. Then you can go and do some homework.’

‘Too sore. I’m dying’.

‘Ok, just do it quietly’.

Believe me, I was sympathetic, but this continued in a loop all day. He’d appear in front of me, a wan-faced vision. He’d lie on the sofa, asking for help to pick up the remote, but oddly not needing the same help to play on his iphone.  I made him a hot chocolate with a dollop of Fluff on top and helped him pack his bag.

Monday. I bandaged, unbandaged and bandaged his wrist so many times I lost count. It got in the way of his x-box controller. I got a bigger bandage (ha!) and wrapped that round his wrist instead. I’m not a horrible mum, honestly, but my nerves were stretched.

One sulky Teenager plus one (slight) injury has made for a very unhappy household these last few days. To top it all, after helping him with his school jumper yesterday morning and packing his school bag once more, I offered to bandage his wrist again. ‘Nah, don’t worry, it felt better on Monday, I just enjoyed wearing it, everyone was asking me about it at school……’