Stevie's birthday is today. He didn't have a very good birthday, unfortunately. I was woken up this morning by a call from the school saying his ankle was getting bad again. Sure enough, when I got there to pick him up, there was a swollen area that was draining...had a bloody spot on his sock. He was running a low grade fever, too.

I did my best to let him have a good day anyway. Took him straight to Arby's, one of his favorite fast food places for lunch right after I picked him up. We got the food, then came home and ate lunch. Then I gave him some medicine for the fever and the pain. Then I ran him a hot bath (hot baths seem to help his ankle quite a bit). Then I made him hot chocolate with whipped cream, and we watched Shrek 2.

Bill came home unexpectedly -- his ankle was bothering him and the wrestling coach sent him home to put ice on it. He was lucky to catch the bus home! But he was able to stay with Steven for the half hour it took me to run to the nearest grocery store and pick up a cake and some chocolate milk for Stevie!

Tonight was Bill's soccer banquet, and we had to go. We had all of the plates and cups and napkins and plastic forks and that sort of thing in the back of my Jeep!  Steven used Bill's crutches, and he sat with his leg up on a chair. It was quite an emotional night. The coach's son is a senior, and he and his father broke into tears several times, especially when his father announced his resignation. He had been coaching soccer for something like twenty years at various levels for his sons. Now the little one is done, so the coach decided to hang up his soccer shoes as well.

Two referees came, and sat at our table. They were there to give our school a reward for good sportsmanship as voted on by the refs in the area. One of them was fascinating to talk to. He was an older gentleman and his father had been an engineer in Nazi Germany. He had worked on the early jet fighters. He moved the family east to avoid advancing British troops. They ended up in what would be East Germany, and the family had to escape from the Soviets, who started making midnight raids and collecting the engineers and scientists and carrying them off to Russia to never be heard from again. As soon as the man I met was old enough, as soon as he had finished high school, he came to America, where he joined our military, then went to the university and became a teacher (and soccer referee). What an interesting life!