Out Of The Mouth Of Ains (And My Mom): Anatomy Edition

First, a good one about my mom.

It looks like she's coming home today after being in the hospital since Sunday with pneumonia. So that's good news. But her hospital stay wasn't completely without humor.

Between the narcotic cough syrup they give her at night and the pain relief they were giving her those first few days when her chest felt like an elephant was on it, she has had some loopy moments. One evening a heart doctor she had never met before came into her room to check her out; mom has a coronary artery blockage and they wanted to keep an eye on her heart while she was fighting off the infection.

My sister came to visit a couple of hours later.

"What day is it?" my mom asked. Even when unmedicated, we often have to remind her what day it is because she's not big on calendars or timepieces and doesn't work anymore.

My sister told her.

"But it's not Halloween or anything, is it?"

"No...why?"

My mom then said that she figured there must be a Halloween party somewhere in the hospital because a doctor came into her room with either an awful-looking mask or some very well-done fright makeup.

Once she told my sister the doctor's name, it occurred to Joanie...this doctor has a facial deformity. One side of his face is severely disfigured, whether due to an accident or a birth defect we don't know. When I told Jason the story, he confirmed that he has seen this doctor around the various times his own mom has been in the hospital.

But that's not the funny part. The funny part is what my mom said to him when he came into her room decked out, she thought, for Halloween.

She said he stood in the doorway for a moment. She thought this was to give her the full effect of his "costume."

"How are you doing today, Mrs. Hyden?" he asked.

"A lot better than you are, apparently!" she replied. She thought that was the sort of reply he was going for with his "mask."

Let's hope he gets those kind of comments a lot from well-medicated patients and has developed a tough skin about them.



Now a story about Ains.

After my root canal yesterday, I was pretty sore and didn't feel up to taking Ainsley to her swim lesson. Jason took care of it, and when the lesson was over he took her into our gym's family changing room, where parents can take their children of a different sex and take advantage of spacious private changing rooms hopefully away from naked non-family members of a different gender.

It doesn't always work this way.

When Jason took her in there, there were a couple of boys getting out of their swim trunks right there in the open and not in a private room. Ainsley started staring.

"Daddy, why do those boys have strings coming out of the butts?"

It took him a second to realize what she was talking about. Since it wasn't really a good time and place to explain the difference between little boys and little girls, he just put his hand on her shoulder and told her to head to the women's locker room where he would wait outside and let her handle things on her own.

I honestly thought she already knew about boys' "strings"; after all, she was in daycare and saw younger kids being changed, and we've dealt with mothers bringing boys into the women's locker room to change before.

But I guess it's time for that part of "the talk."