My son Sam has been sick for the past couple of days. Parents of young children know that, unless they have a miraculous childcare arrangement, sick days for kids mean that the parents are basically sick too (often literally).

Instead of the things I had planned to do:

• Going for a run
• Cleaning up the kitchen
• Helping people build a website (i.e. work)
• Prepping some documents for our tax returns
• Reading a little or maybe drawing

I did the following:

• Played Jenga (and lost)
• Created a pretend Minecraft build using Legos (and worked on my tie fighter)
• Helped Sam take a nap (and fell asleep myself)
• Read the entirety of book 4 of Diary of a Minecraft Zombie

These days were two of what seem like a thousand that my wife and I needed to just not do what we thought we were going to do.

It can be frustrating if you let it be.

But parenting is a neverending lesson in accepting what you can’t control.

There is nothing else to do but call in sick, give up your plans for the day, and grab a handful of Legos.