I'm a lucky man

I’ve always thought of small children as a form of Marr.
They’re sneaky, conniving and manipulative (mindshackle 3 anyone?)
They reach out for you with claw-like little hands and try to pull you into the leaky green diaper world that they inhabit. Their faces are drooly goo covered noise-making contraptions that stare and bite. And they snore.

My rampant three year old truly has a personality that is wild. He is old enough to speak, and he’s quite good at stringing together thoughts and concepts. For example, we were having a discussion about the women at his daycare. I asked him why there were no men there, to which he replied men don’t like daycare. The following conversation ensued:
ME: So what’s the difference between men and women anyway? How are boys and girls different?
3 year old: Women have long hair.
ME: You used to have long hair.
3 year old: (thoughtful silence) Girls wear pink.
ME: I could put a pink shirt on you right now. Would that make you a girl?
3 year old: No. (very thoughtful silence) Boys don’t care if their arms are cut off.

So now I know the true difference! (do you think he’s been watching me modify figures?)

Every other Monday my schedule allows me to pick him up from daycare at noon and we have some serious one on one time. He’s usually sitting there at a little table looking at books because all of their other children are doing nap time. It’s quite amazing to see- the women are seated on the floor and all around them on little mats the children sleep- it’s very hivelike.

Anyway on a Monday not too long ago the hivequeen wanted to have a word with me. I was prepared for the usual “are you working on toilet training at home?” speech but no, not this time. She had something in her hand. It was a piece of a tooth.

Apparently my little Marr had been jumping off the playground equipment (he has this thing for jumping off stuff- he really needs swamp water underneath him) and this time he had bounced off the equipment and snapped off one of his teeth. There was a sharp shard left in his mouth but he didn’t seem to care one way or the other. He’s like that.

Our dentist is from the Esenwein Clan. She gives me the creeps and I don’t like her at all. She said my pup was going to need some dental work- and by the way he has two cavities too. When you’re three you don’t go to the dentist for a little work. You get admitted to the hospital and put under a general anesthesia. And it costs a fortune.

I like hospitals as much as I like elves. (I’ve become an honourary dwarf). I have vaso vagal syncope- roughly translated means that I pass out when I’m exposed to doctors, hospitals, needles, and certain women. But there was to be no way around it. My pup was going to have to go in for day surgery.

I explained it all to him. He’s very good about most things. We went to a pre-op workshop for kids with nine other families. A pretty nurse dressed a little doll in hospital pajamas and tucked the doll into a hospital bed. “Doesn’t she look nice and comfy?” The nurse asked.
“Ah, I don’t think so.” My son answered.
The nurse stopped asking rhetorical questions but that didn’t stop my son.
“This monitor doesn’t hurt at all.”
“I don’t think so.” My Marr baby said.
“This squeezy thing doesn’t hurt your finger.”
“It bites it. It bites fingers.” Quipped my little drudge.
“It’s fun to get pushed in the bed- see the bed has wheels!”
“It’s going to crash.” My son said. “The doll is going to fall out. She will die.”
The other parents thought it was hysterical. The nurse began to hate me. And I feared it was just a taste of what was to come.

He handled the ‘no food after midnight thing’ okay. We had to be there at 6:30AM. He was okay with that. But he WOULD NOT put on the yellow hospital pajamas. I admired him for it. There was so much he knew he couldn’t change- he was going to make a stand where he figured he had a chance. But the hospital staff wasn’t having any of it. Then he had this syrupy stuff that made him sleepy and they wheeled him away…..

I had thought this was going to be the worst part, the waiting, but truth was I was so wiped out I just sort-of-slept in the chair in the waiting area.

Then I got called in to “recovery”. My son was “having a tough time” coming out of the anesthesia. One of the worst cases they’d seen. He was semi-conscious, and thrashing wildly. He was bleeding from his mouth. He cut my face and arms with his nails as I tried to hold him. The IV in his hand was hurting him. I tried to hold him and two nurses tried to keep the IV in. And then I went down. The nurses weren’t impressed. I get a little warning, so I was able to pass my son to another nurse. I didn’t actually pass out, just became non-functioning and flopped on the floor. I felt like crap, but mostly because I knew I was letting my son down.

Well, we both got through that part and ended up in a room in the pediatric ward. He had to stay for two hours and if he was okay we could go home. It was a semi-private room and there was another little boy, a four year old in the bed across from us. His parents were with him and they were really nice people. It was the boy’s fifth operation. He was profoundly disabled. He could not speak. He just grunted and groaned. His eyes were crossed and they stared at something that only he could see. I chatted with his parents a bit. I was covered in blood and was actually in the bed with my son. At that time they had given him a slushy which he really enjoyed but it immediately brought on some really nasty stomach pain.

I could not stop thinking about the other boy. He would never have weird conversations with his parents. They would never see him get married, become a father, get his first job, learn to drive. Go on a date. It was clear they loved him very much and he loved them and I was happy for them that way.
There was a look of resignation in their faces- this was their life- and they had to go through things that nobody else knew about, but they were going to do it.

I know it sounds silly but I was consumed with a single thought- their son would never play Scape with them. I mean they probably don’t even play and don’t even know what it is. But it’s something- a connection- common interest- a playful challenging of each other-a shared journey- the magic of alternate universes where anything can happen- it’s so much. In my family, it’s something we all join in together, a shared world that’s just for us. We are brothers and buddies in our version of Scapeworld.

I’m not trying to put that other family down. I know they will have good times and bad times just like everyone. But their possibilities are not endless. Like my son’s. I know you play the cards you’re dealt but it must be hard.

As I cradled my son and rubbed his stomach, I felt guilty, and very very lucky.