My daughter the surgeon

There are few things I can do right now with my kids that are doctor-approved. One thing I have taken to doing is lying down in Mercy’s bed with her when it is time for her afternoon nap. Clearly a bed-rest approved activity!

Yesterday I cuddled up with her in her bed with all the necessary tools: her blanket, her drink, her book (Frog and Toad Are Friends), and a stuffed animal. Actually, I grabbed two stuffed animals, one for her and one for myself. I picked two little stuffed dinosaurs that her Grandma Peggy had sent her a while back. I gave her one and I kept the other to cuddle with. My strategy in helping Mercy fall asleep when I am with her in the bed is to pretend to fall asleep myself. So after a bit of talking, I told her it was time to go to sleep, and I cuddled up close with my little dinosaur, closed my eyes, and started breathing deeply.

She waited a few minutes, and as soon as my fake sleeping appeared convincing enough, she began, with surgical precision, to slowly extract the dinosaur that I was cuddling up under my chin. She worked cautiously, with impressive stealth, gently easing the captive animal out from beneath my face and through my hands. As soon as she had freed him, she very quickly, and with equal care, slipped her dinosaur into the vacancy. I tried SO HARD not to smile throughout. The procedure lasted a matter of minutes–my daughter is capable of great demonstrations of patience, I am learning–and I was literally biting the insides of my cheeks the entire time. Once she had her desired companion, she cuddled up with him and turned on her side to go to sleep.

Published
Categorized as Family

3 comments

  1. Hilarious! I don’t know that I could have kept that smile in.

    The story in my family is that when I was 8 or 9 I had major dental surgery. The dentist told my parents that I would probably need to sleep off the rest of the general anesthesia when I got home. My dad laid down to nap with me and because he had been so nervous while I was under the knife, I fell asleep immediately. I could not sleep and left him there while I went back downstairs to play.

    I have no memory of this but my mother pulls it out every once in awhile when my dad is being particularly obnoxious.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *