While I am (obviously) happy to have my dirty laundry out there for all to see, I try to protect my kids from Google while I can. They have both had online monikers since they were just a few weeks old.
My eldest, now 6 1/2 (where did THAT time go?) is Gromit, named for the fact he was a superb Vomit Gromit as a newborn. The baby (who is now nearly two - huh?) is Missy, short for Missy Moo Moo, which we call her at home (it's hard to remember proper names at our ages).
And now, just to confuse things, Missy has just come home after day surgery to get grometts . I can hear my invisipeeps now, with their witty retorts about whether Gromit also has Missys, not to mention that most of the peeps won't even know what grometts are. They're mainly American, you see (the peeps, not the grometts) and American English is far more literal than ours. They call them "ear tubes" (how dull).
Anyway, back to the point of the post, which, until I got sidetracked, was going to be Missy's day under the knife.
Surgery to install (is that the right word? Makes it sound like a home entertainment system, or shutter blinds) grometts into a kid's ear is fairly straightforward. A good ENT would do several a day. But ANYTHING that requires a toddler to fast for six hours or more waking hours will send shivers down the spine of most parents. There's a reason the Winemaker was happy that I was the one who had taken the day off work.
The day began well (at 5.20am!) with her drinking a huge bottle of milk. I then spent the next couple of hours feeding her anything she asked for (Freddo for breakfast? Sure, why not?). We had to stop all food at 8am, although water and clear cordial was allowed until noon.
We lasted until 8.45am before she started rubbing her tummy and saying, rather demandingly, as is her wont, "gree, gree, gree". At that time, we were walking down by the beach, her in her stroller, me with my iPod cranked up to "I hope people in Iceland are enjoying the music". I took an executive decision to play with the definition of "clear cordial" and bought her a Lemonade ice block about 10am. This was inspired! It kept her quiet for a good half an hour while I managed to have a shower, wash the breakfast dishes and pack the bags for our time in hospital.
About 10.45, the whining started up again, so I threw her in the car and off we went, detouring past the shops on the way. This, also, kept her mind on other things and was a godsend.
I had hoped that she might sleep during the hour-long car trip into town but that was not to be. We arrrived at the hospital about 1pm, and she headed to theatre about 2.15. The LONGEST 75 minutes of her little life. Ooh boy, the tiredness and the hunger was not a good mix. A sweet four-year old boy in the day bed next to us tried as hard as he could to cheer her up, sharing his Teenage Mutant Ninjas Turtles and Bakugan with her, but she was inconsolable.
The surgery itself was quick and relatively painless. She had some trouble coming out of the anesthetic, but within a couple of hours, she was back to her old self - and eating everything in sight.
And me? Well, I got a little teary while I held her as the anaesthatist held the mask over her tiny mouth but all in all, it wasn't as bad as I had expected.
It helps to put days like this into perspective. As I was waiting for Missy to come out of surgery, I received a text from a friend who's 14-month old son is undergoing chemotherapy for a tumour on his liver. I would happily take 100 days like the one I've just had, rather than a experience a minute of what she is going through.
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