My son is in cahoots with the pediatrician!

By Mike Cound

Mike Cound, a sports agent, lives in North Chattanooga with his wife, Cindy, and his 9-year-old son, Jerry, a third-grader at Normal Park Museum Magnet School.

My son is in cahoots with the pediatrician!
By Mike Cound

My wife Cindy and I are seemingly a little older than most of the other parents of 8- to 9-year-olds we hang around with here in North Chattanooga. I haven’t checked any birth certificates or anything, but I notice that many of them do not yet realize that driving a minivan is extremely cool; this comes with age and maturity. I am apparently the only person under 70 driving my particular geriatric model of automobile, but at least my wife has a minivan to keep us hip. Overall, however, we seem to hang in there pretty well with our young friends. Granted, some of the younger dads occasionally need to help me in and out of the car or on and off the barstool, but we do OK in general.

In my effort to “keep it young and fresh” for our little toothpick of joy, Jerry, I’m constantly looking for the latest and hippest way to refer to him. I use “dude” a lot, and I tell him it’s time to “hug it out” on occasion, when I need some TLC before bedtime or whatever. It is in this vein of attempted hipness that I mistakenly tried to start a trend on Jerry’s soccer team.

One of Jerry’s teammates, Jack, is usually brought to practice by his mom, Jane. I noticed that she always called him “Jackman” during practice, and I thought that was pretty cool, although I also found it sort of bizarre. During practices and games, I’d hear “Go, Jackman!” or “Run, Jackman!” or “Here’s your water bottle, Jackman!” and I thought that had a pretty neat ring to it. So, always one to conform to the trends, I found a couple of opportunities to voice my encouragement to Jerry by saying, “Good job, Jer-man!” and/or “Get to the ball, Jer-man!” I don’t remember him acknowledging my presence, but that isn’t all that rare, to be honest. I’m also not sure if this trend was catching on with all the other soccer moms and dads. I’m sure it was only a matter of time.

Anyway, during one of our daily “parental improvement seminars” at the dinner table, and in discussing some of the people we had met around the soccer field, Cindy asked me if I had met Jane and her husband. I confirmed that I had and went on to comment about Jane’s tendency to call her son “Jackman,” and how I found that both cool and odd at the same time. Immediately after spitting up her Chardonnay, Cindy pointed out to me that their last name is “Mann,” and that Jane probably calls her son “Jack Mann” to distinguish between him and another Jack on the team. Score one for the logic-spouting wife! Needless to say, I have not called my son “Jer-man” since that moment.

On another note, I’ve recently discovered that Jerry has somehow bribed our pediatrician in order to receive a diagnosis favorable to his personal needs and schedule. I haven’t figured out how he does it, but it’s clear there’s a conspiracy going on.

Let me explain by saying that I’ve been getting excited by the realization that, as Jerry grows taller and stronger, I will soon have a built-in leaf-raking and grass-mowing machine right here, under my roof. Just as I was beginning to plan my fall leaf-raking strategy, which should very prominently feature the skills of one active third-grader, the pediatrician and his co-conspirator, the allergist, suddenly came out with a report that my son is “very” allergic to grass, tomatoes, peanuts and 8,423 species of trees.

Now, I can buy the allergy to peanuts and tomatoes (although baseball games and chips-and-salsa binges just won’t exist for the poor little guy…); however, I simply must protest the grass and tree results. It appears that one simple doctor’s visit has absolved Jerry from raking leaves not only in Chattanooga, but in pretty much every other city in the world, as he apparently is allergic to trees and shrubs all the way from Indonesia to Peru!

Evidence of the conspiracy was pretty much solidified for me when I was told he’s allergic not only to oak, elm and maple, but also to the Eastern Wahoo Burningbush and other species I’ve never heard of. The credibility of the allergist went out the door with this little tidbit of information. Why was he testing Jerry for tree allergies, anyway? It seems to serve no purpose other than to guarantee the continuation of my life of yard-work solitude, without hope of a grass-cutting, leaf-bagging cohort for my golden years.

How do you argue with a kid who can’t spell “allergist” but who keeps his allergy report handy, just to put a damper on my outdoor plans? “Sorry, Dad. We can’t camp there due to the unusually large population of bitternut hickory in this area; you know how itchy I get, Dad.”

Something smells! I just can’t figure out how he’s compensating these guys…  Juice boxes? Wii lessons?

Anyway, I hope my experience will assist you in recognizing some of those daily conspiracies perpetrated by your own little ones. I wish you all a wonderful fall season with your kids here in beautiful Chattanooga. You probably won’t see me around, as I will be busy raking leaves in our yard…alone.