What He Can Do: bake, garden, play with sand, fly a kite, wash the car, watch fish in an aquarium, take a bubble bath, listen to an audiobook, paint, draw, color, make friendship bracelets, bead, mold clay, make paper flowers, make candles, trace, make latch hook rugs, get a manicure, cook, build original Lego creations, collect rocks or leaves
What He Can’t Do: everything he normally does. Shoot hoops, watch TV, play video games, go to school, run track, use headphones.
Concussion recovery looks like craft kits and Crayolas, colored pencils and coloring books, Dominos and chess–which probably requires too much focus but keeps him quieter than any other activity. It’s reading aloud (we’re on our fifth book in two weeks) and long car rides as long as he promises to wear sunglasses. The highlight of each day is driving to the diner to get a strawberry milkshake.
He doesn’t complain much about being bored–maybe because we talk nonstop and shift activities every hour or so. Maybe because I keep quoting the Internet: “If you’re super bored, you’re doing it right.” Maybe because he’s complaining so much about everything else.
For the first five days, he sleeps about eighteen hours a day. Things are so much easier then. Three meals, a little coloring, a lot of reading aloud, and the remaining six hours are spent.
Then he starts to feel better, and it becomes difficult to keep him quiet, still, calm. This is an injury he can’t see, and once he feels better, he doesn’t believe it’s really there anymore. And he seems to be doing so well, it’s easy to say yes to school, yes to shooting hoops, yes to TV before he’s ready. He suffers a setback, and we’re back to square one. No school, no shooting hoops, less TV. More drawing and Dominos and drives.
And if he gets bored, I can offer him a sandbox or a stroll to collect leaves.
the dirigible plum 
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