Jesse's last basketball game

My son, Jesse, has been sick with a chest infection since last Monday and he had a rough week. He got to a point of being too sick to go to school and he ended up missing 3 days of school. Fortunately, he saw a doctor on Saturday, and we are giving him the right medicines that he needs for treatment.

And while I definitely want to encourage a child to rest and limit activities while being sick, it would seem that Jesse was not going to be able to do that this weekend.

Yesterday was the day the team pictures for his basketball team were being taken and today was their last game. It was not like we could reschedule these things and this was the only time those things were going to happen. And while Jesse was feeling pretty crappy, I knew he had to go to both games. If he didn’t go, he would miss out on both of those things. He might regret that later and also get really upset. My husband didn’t want Jesse to go to either games, but these were the last two – the first with team pictures – so I told him that Jesse had to go despite being sick. (And anyway, I wanted Jesse to learn that sometimes we have to do things even when we are sick. Heck, when I was sick for all of last week, I still got up early in the morning and got the kids to school! Life doesn’t stop just because we get sick!)

I explained to the coach that Jesse was sick so Jesse was allowed to sit out Saturday’s game. However, Jesse was feeling well enough to play today, so he got to play with his team for their last game. I am so glad that he got to play, too. It WAS the last game! His team didn’t win but they still had a good game. And Jesse played pretty well, despite being sick.

So he got to be in the team pictures and he also got to play for his team’s last game. This season has gone by so fast. Jesse did miss a lot of practices and games, unfortunately, because of sickness or because we were out of town, but he had a great time playing basketball. I am glad he has good memories of his first experience of playing basketball. He will cherish those memories for a long time. His teammates were awesome and he got along with everybody. And his coaches were awesome, too!

It’s gonna take me a while to get used to not having to schedule things around his practices and games, and even not taking him to practices or games anymore! But there’s always next season. He is looking forward to playing on a basketball team again. Meanwhile, he’ll be shooting hoops off-season when he gets the chance!

Here are the pictures I took from today’s game. Jesse is #40.