Tough Mommying

On Wednesday, I took Jack to see his surgeon, Dr. Jafaar, whose name sounds evil. First, it took us an hour to get the approximately 20 miles to the doctor's office. Then we had to wait for an hour, much of which I spent trying to convince Jack that it was not time to go bye bye. When Evil Dr. Jafaar was able to see us, things got harder. He had to clean Jack's incision with alcohol, and some of it got in Jack's eye. Jack started screaming and crying, just in time for us to have to remove the stitches. A nurse and I held him down on a table, Evil Dr. Jafaar unwrapped a very sharp object and told me to look away. Happy to oblige! While Jack screamed and struggled, I sang "Old McDonald" to him and told him it was okay.

But, God, it did not feel okay at all. My little guy was screaming and fighting. He was scared, and I don't blame him. I would be too, if someone was working a scalpel by my eye. I wanted to just grab him, run out of there, and maybe remove the stitches myself using nail scissors while he was asleep.

Finally, it was over. Evil Dr. Jafaar told Jack he did a good job, then patted me on the shoulder and said, "You did a good job, too, Mommy." I think he was genuinely impressed, because believe me, I was totally putting on a brave front.

After another hour of driving to get home, I decided I'd done enough tough mommying work for the day and engaged in some excellent lazy mommying: I put Elmo Saves Christmas on and cuddled with Jack until Steve got home.

The good news is, Jack healed great, and we can put this whole episode behind us. I am really proud of how well my little guy did with what had to have been a very stressful and scary situation.