You've Got a Friend in Me

A very short bedtime conversation:

Sam: I need to sleep in your bed right now. I don't want to fall asleep in my bed and then go to your bed when I wake up later.

Mommy: Why, Sam? Your bed is comfy and you have a night light and nice music. This is a great room. Why do you like mine better for sleeping?

Sam: Because your room has just a bed in it. The toys don't move in there.

Angie: You think you see your toys move? Which ones?

Sam: All of them. When I look at them.

(long pause, memories of my childhood fears flooding in...)

Angie: My room it is. Come on...

Sam: :)

Mind the Gap

I was in the surgical room with Sam for all of a minute before being booted by the anesthesiologist so the dentist could get to work repairing the nursing cavities that wrapped around the backs and sides of his front teeth. We'd been in the waiting room for nearly 2 hours and had spent another 10 minutes or so in the patient prep area, where Sam played Darth Vader with the mini gas mask so as to be comfortable with the idea of having it pressed to his face. I didn't like the looks of it at all. Issued another silent prayer for the CHEO moms while looking at the stack of tiny hospital gowns and the kid-cheery artwork on the walls.

The women knew what they were doing when they popped Sam up on to the operating table and told me to "hold his hands, keep them down" (expecting him to fight the placement of the gas mask; he didn't). They gave us no time at all to take in the room and get a little comfortable with the idea of IVs and heart monitors and the rest of it. Better not to have the chance to see it all than to get anxious about the equipment and all those people in masks. Thinking back, I wonder now why there were five nurses in the room. Five?

I did a passable job, tho, of acting as though this was a regular part of dental care. And it's a good thing, because Sam fixed his wide eyes on me with the intensity of a child searching his mother's face for signs that would betray her soothing words. Already going limp, he tried to lift his foot up, to show me that someone had clamped a heart rate monitor on to it. I started to explain, but already he was losing focus. He blinked it off and pulled his eyes back to me three times, each time with a little less Sam in them. Then he was unconscious. "Give him a kiss, Mom, then out you go," said the woman in charge of keeping Sam breathing. I'd made a prep room pledge to leave without hesitation at that command. But I didn't expect it to happen so quick! I kissed Sam's forehead with an "I love you" and let go of his hands. As I backed away, his left arm dropped off the side of the table, and I had to fight the urge to step back and tuck it up gently beside him.

I passed Dr Fremeth on the way out the door. He offered a smiley "Give me 45 minutes, and we'll call you back." At the time, I would have given anything to stay in the room, but in retrospect, I know it would have been tough to watch the team thread an oxygen tube through his nose and down his throat, or find the tiny veins on the back of each hand for analgesic, anti-nauseant and hydrating liquids. And the grinding buzz of dentistry is more than I can handle when the drill is boring into my face, never mind my little bunny's. Better that I tried to pass the time reading Oprah magazines and texting Jeremy about how sick and anxious I was.

70 minutes later, Sam awoke with a strangulated cough that sprayed blood across my shirt and arms: the tubing hurt him more than anything else. Limp but desperate, he tried to say "mom!", but only the mmm's came out. The nurses led us to an armchair and wrapped us together in blankets. Sam was nearly dead weight in my arms. It took about 20 minutes of whispering and singing in his ear, but he came to slowly and moaned through the little tests that got us discharged: drank water, answered a question with words, pointed to something.

Strapped into his booster seat for the ride home, he fell back into a drugged sleep that had his slackened body fall so far to the right that I lost sight of him in the rearview mirror. Having been instructed to monitor him closely, I watched him sleep for two hours. He awoke hoarse but happy and ran to the mirror for a look at his teeth. I didn't expect there to be a noticeable repair, but Sam shouted out that his "chipped tooth" was gone (he'd smacked into a coffee table after winding himself dizzy in Noemi's curtains when he was 2). The small fillings had noticeably reduced the gap between his front teeth. A shiny, straight smile.

He admired the results for a few minutes, then this little boy who hadn't had a morsel or drop in 20 hours ate a very, very big dinner.

Ungrounded at the Fair Grounds

Here are a few pics of Sammy enjoying the midway rides at Andrew Haydon Park's Canada Day party. In the first, he's giggling on the upswing of the ferris wheel, as relaxed as if he was enjoying a mere piggy-back ride. In the second, he's offering a frozen smile of fear as his carousel horse giddy-ups its 4 inches of post before plunging recklessly back towards the earth. The twin sides of Sam make fair going an interesting prospect.

Sam has never cared to venture to the second level of the McDonald's Play Place climbing structure: he finds plenty to do on the ground level. At Cosmic Adventures, he sticks close to the ball pools and gentle grade slides, ignoring the sky-high tubing and twirly slides. So when he spotted the ferris wheel from the parking lot (3 or 4 miles away ;-) we figured his interest would evaporate when he got a closer look. When it didn't, I had my money on him ducking out of the line-up as soon as we got to the stairway. That's what Carter did. Suddenly remembered that his mom had told him he wasn't big enough for ferris wheels. I didn't blame him. I was getting a little nervous myself.

But Sam was steadfast. Asked once or twice (or 6 times) if this ride went upside down. Then he handed over his tickets and plunked into his seat. I crossed my fingers that we wouldn't be halted at the top to let on more riders. So, of course, that's exactly what happened. Sam asked if the wheel was breaking. I tried very hard not to look closely at the rusty bolts as I assured him otherwise and braced for his freak out. But he took the "up in the sky" opportunity to check out the full midway and choose other rides to go on. Surprising. When we lurched over the apex Sam gleefully declared, "I'm CRAZY FROOOOOOGGG!!" (thinking of how that character zooms off the end of buildings on his invisible flying motorcycle.)

It was a blast. He narrated the whole ride in his goofy way, once proclaiming at the height of the wheel, "I have a monster under my bed!!" - a nod to the book-on-tape we were listening to on the short drive in. The kids in front of us turned around to laugh. He was the happiest boy on the wheel. Sam, of all kids.

Emboldened by his ferris wheel experience, Sam then decided to take on the Tilt-o-Whirl with Daddy and Carter. They loved it. Until the ride started. Three minutes later, I begged the operator to let Sam off. While Carter and Jeremy looked merely ill, Sammy was terrified. Too scared to cry, his face was a mask of "this railing is going to break and I'm going to be flung to my death" fear. Was awful, but he recovered quickly. Carter proclaimed a number of times, "That was a mistake. We're never going to do that again." He repeatedly verified the name of the ride, committing it to memory on the "Forget It" list. The rest of the morning was pleasant, tho. They went nuts in the jumpy castle; rode motor boats, and spinning strawberries and motorcycles and carousel horses; fed some sheep and goats at the petting zoo; got a maple leaf tattoo; and decided on candy floss as their treat.

When we were down to the last of the tickets, we lined up at the ferris wheel again. Sam's request. He enjoyed a rare opportunity to try talking Carter into attempting something: the shoe is not usually on that foot. Brave as he tried to be, Carter began trembling and chewing nervously on his shirt sleeves as we neared the front of the line. Jeremy gave him the bumper car out and the two of them ducked away.

So Sam and I finished the Canada Day fair the way we started it. With giggles and silly talk and sightseeing together on the ferris wheel. The ferris wheel.