Nitty Gritty Grammar

Have a child come down with the Swine Flu.  Have him laid flat out on the couch, sick as a dog, for almost two solid weeks.  Have him grow bored with everything.  Bored with TV, bored with videogames, bored with life.  Bored, bored, bored!  In the meantime, decide impulsively to reorganize your books.  Begin like gangbusters and take great piles of books and stack them around the family room thinking you'll be able to sit and organize them better there.  Lose steam almost immediately.  Have books sit in stacks on the floor for days, causing everyone to have to step over them as they go in and out of the room.  Feel defeated.  Kick yourself for not having your act together.  Vow to yourself every night that you will make yourself do something about those books.  At the top of one of the stacks have there be a book you bought on impulse some years ago but never really read or used.  Have bored to death son spy it and start to read it.  While you cook things for him to try to get him to regain his appetite, have him talk to you enthusiastically about the book.  Have him laugh at the funny parts.  Have him discuss aspects of grammar that you never thought a 10 year old would find fascinating.  Thank God for the silver lining that came with the dark cloud of sick kids and chaotic housekeeping.