How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane (34 page)

The husband drives while I (still unable to conjure a vertical position) lay in the back next to the kid in her car
seat. Determined to be at least the tiniest bit helpful, I strain to hold a bunch of balled-up napkins to my daughter's forehead while she happily eats her cake and bleeds.

Laying there in the backseat, watching the tops of the trees as they fly past the car window, I am dumbfounded. Not only did I once intend to become a doctor, but I have always prided myself on my ability to remain calm in crisis. I once dated a guy who nicknamed me “Clutch” for just that reason. Sure, he was a Civil War reenactor who thought he was psychic and could channel fallen Union soldiers—but still, even he could see that I was brave, strong, and dependable. How will I achieve my fantasy of a late-in-life career change and become a doctor at age sixty-three if this is how I react to a little flesh wound?

We enter the emergency room area, my daughter now covered in blood, cake, and icing, but otherwise in pretty good spirits. Her dad thinks this is a great time to tease me and asks if I need a wheelchair. Ha ha ha.

One wheelchair later, we roll into the examination room.

A nurse comes in and asks my daughter to lie down on the examination table so she can prep her for stitches. At the mere mention of the word
stitches
, I feel the pull of my eyes crossing, so I lie down right next to the kid. The kid laughs. “MAMA, WHY ARE YOU LYING DOWN? YOU'RE NOT GETTING STITCHES.” I tell my unflappable little girl that I just want to be near her and leave out the part about me being a flappably flappy, almost-fainting mess.

In walks the on-duty doctor, and even from my nauseous, sideways vantage point, I can see how attractive he is, like he's just stepped off the set of
That Show With All
The Hot Doctors
. I'm almost outraged at how good-looking he is, with his perfect dreadlocks and perfect skin and perfect teeth that are so perfectly aligned and bright when he smiles I swear to God I can hear them sparkle. I look over at the four-year-old—she is enthralled; apparently, she can hear his teeth sparkle too. I glance at the husband; there's no mistaking his reaction—he too is agog, mouth hanging just a tiny bit open.
^*
†

Dr. Perfect pulls a chair up to the examination table. “So I heard there's a soccer star in here. Which one of you is it?” The kid giggles and tells him, “ME. I EVEN SCORED A GOAL!”

“That's awesome. Fist pound!” They exchange a bonding fist-pound explosion, and then he leans over to give her forehead a close look. “Wait a minute . . . It looks like . . . Why is there icing all over your face? Are you so sweet that you have icing in your blood?” She giggles some more. This guy is good. If he really is on a TV show—and I don't see how he can't be—I am going to have to start recording it immediately.

The husband comes over to watch as the doctor examines the cut, manipulating it, causing it to open and close like a tiny, toothless mouth. I want to be strong, but every time that cut opens, I want to crawl up inside my own birth canal.

Doctor Sparkleteeth turns to me lying on the table and gives me a sympathetic look. “How are you doing? You okay?”

“Me?” I squeak. “I'm good.” Then a nurse wheels a table of instruments over and holds up an anesthetic-filled needle. I close my eyes and blow a small stream of air through my mouth, just like I learned during that birthing class I took back in '06.

After he administers the anesthetic and while he is waiting for it to take effect, Dr. Wonderful looks at me with understanding (and possibly just the tiniest bit of desire—though I suppose it's possible I was reading into it).

“You're doing great, Mom.”

“I bet you see a lot of freaked-out parents come through here,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says. “But you gotta keep in mind, when a child gets an injury like this, there's a serious risk of secondary injury, to the heart . . .”

“Wait—what? . . .!”

“The
parent's
heart.” he says, his eyes boring into mine.

Now if I'd read that in a book, I probably would have gagged. But hearing it from his full lips, I just want to bawl my eyes out in gratitude.

“Give yourself a break,” he says. “Seeing your child in pain is one of the most upsetting and stressful events a parent can go through.” Then he leans in even closer and whispers, his minty-fresh breath like a cool breeze in my ear, “We once had an off-duty surgeon come through here. Fainted when he saw his son's dislocated shoulder.”

I don't know if it's just a line, but I really don't care. If I learned just one thing during my time as a never-will-be-doctor, it's that if it works, a placebo is just as good as the real thing.

As Dr. Smoooooth stitches up the kid, she doesn't even cry. She just keeps on talking about soccer, birthday parties, princesses, and all of the other things that transfix a four-year-old as she gazes into the eyes of her hero.

And whether it's his bedside manner, his deep-brown eyes, the way he fills out his scrubs—or the fact that he has healed my wounds, too—I too make it through her stitches without fainting, crying, or vomiting. I'm even able to sit up when it comes time to say good-bye to young Dr. Mm-mm-mmm as he leaves to return to the set of
That Show With All The Hot Doctors
, or wherever it is that abnormally handsome young physicians go after repairing the tiny bodies of their patients and their parents' troubled hearts.

*
Okay, I did laugh out loud.

^†
I think we can all agree that the blame lies squarely at the feet of the Three Stooges, Carol Burnett, Jim Carrey, and Mr. Bean.

^‡
As per Exhibit C of “The Marriage Quotient,” p. 115.

^§
Necessary spoiler alert: she's fine. But judging by the blood that was gushing/pouring from her at the time, it seemed that she would not be. Now back to the unspoiled remainder of the story.

*
To the absolute best of my ability, I swear.

^†
Honestly, it really did seem like a good idea at the time.

*
In all fairness, this is a point of contention: the husband claims he was simply taken aback by how young the doctor appeared to be; I say there's no shame in a heterosexual male having his breath taken away by a perfect specimen of manhood. Who's to say who's right?

^†
I am.

twenty-three

LIES I HAVE TOLD MY DAUGHTER

M
ommy and Daddy were just hugging
•
I don't know what happened to the rest of your cake. Maybe you ate it in your sleep?
•
That's exactly how much Halloween candy you came home with last night. It just looks like less to you because your eyeballs grew larger overnight
•
Mommy was just helping Daddy find something that he dropped in his pants; now go to your room
•
No, Mommy has never smoked a cigarette
•
If you don't brush your hair, the Haircut Fairy might come in the middle of the night, and in the morning you'll wake up bald
•
Yes, every other three-year-old in the city knows how to wipe her bum by herself
•
No, Mommy has never tried drugs
•
That's not zucchini; those are long, skinny apples
•
Isabella is wrong—hamburgers are not made
from nice animals with long eyelashes
•
You hate soda. Remember that time you tried it and it made you cry?
•
No, Mommy has never been in trouble with the police
•
You misheard Grandpa—he was talking about “plucking”
•
I'm so sorry, but they just made gum chewing illegal in this county
•
I have no idea how your toy drum with the squeaky, southern singing voice that always sounds like she's auditioning for a Nashville record producer wound up in the garbage, smashed into tiny pieces. That
is
weird
•
We can't go to Disneyland—it's closed this year
•
No, Mommy has never set a house on fire
•
This is not bubble gum; it's special chewing medicine the dentist gave me for my mouth
•
Daddy's lying. Mommy was never a professional mime
•
Yes, Zippy does look different. That must be why he was resting yesterday—he was saving his energy for a growth spurt and so he could change the colors of his fins
•
Mommy was choking, and so Daddy was giving Mommy something called the “Heimlich maneuver,” and no, we weren't naked; we were just wearing invisible clothes. Now go back to sleep.