Sage Advice

Me: "You know Murph, I was blogging the other day about you and how I knew you back in the pool days and it occurred to me that I don't ever remember you paying to get into the pool to swim. Did you ever pay to swim there?"

Murph: (holding up one finger): "Once. I paid one time."

Me: "Once. I didn't think you'd ever paid."

Murph: My father always told me that if you walked into a place like you belonged there no one would ever question you. I've always listened to that. When we were kids we use to walk into the movie theater backward."

Me: "Backward? Why?"

Murph: "Because that way it looked like we were coming out!"

Out of the Mouths of my Babes

Darcy: "Mom, can you give me your assume?"

Me: "What?"

Darcy: "Can you give me your assume? Should I wear my crocs or my sneakers?"

Me: "I don't know what you are talking about. You want me to give you my what?"

Darcy (sighing): "Your assume! You know, you're going to say to me, 'I assumed you would wear your crocs.' So I just want you to give me your assume now before I put on my shoes."

Working my way through the healthcare system

I had to find a new doctor this past year because my doctor just up and retired. At the ripe old age of 50 something, or maybe she was younger. I've been with her since I moved to Florida 18 years ago and she was one in a million, and I knew it would be hard to replace her. I did what all the websites suggested. I researched on the net, studied my insurance doctor information, and asked for referrals until I found someone I thought would work out. Unfortunately, she wasn't taking new patients and passed me off to her new cohort. I made my yearly appointment.

The office was in nice shape and the office staff very courteous. Because it was football season (this happened last fall) I was wearing my Steeler crocs, and removed them when it came time to weigh my body. I mean, we know how much those crocs weigh! As I was removing my shoes, emptying out my pockets and jokingly pretending to remove my shirt, the nurse commented on my crocs.

She was a Cowboys fan and we went into the exam room and talked more football. Eventually, she began asking me medical questions and such. At one point she excused herself, left the room, and conferred outside the door with someone. I didn't pay much attention, having suddenly remembered a question I had wanted to ask. When she entered again, I began asking my question but she hadn't shut the door and another woman was also entering right behind her.

I looked at her and said, "Oh, sorry" thinking she'd been the one outside conversing with the nurse. She was young and when she said, "No, go ahead", I thought, " Now listen, chickie, this is private and none of your beeswax so why don't you do whatever it is that you need to do that can't wait so that I can get on with this appointment." At some point as I had that thought in my head, I registered that the woman was wearing a long, white doctor's coat and that she must not be a new nurse.

I think I said aloud, "Oh, wait, are you the doctor?"

Sure enough, she was my new doctor. She gave me a nice handshake and introduced herself and I refrained from screaming, "HOW OLD ARE YOU?"

Because that was my next thought. Holy Just Out of College Batman. I may or may not have inquired as to her youth and discovered she was 33 or something along those lines which is like 12 in medical years. We chatted. She too is a Steelers fan so I forgave her for her young-ness. Until she asked about
about menopause and I got a tad indignant.

Me: "Now listen, I filled out the form where it asked about my age at meopause. I put N/A. Why would you ask me if I've experienced it? I am not that old!"

I huffed and sighed and slumped down in the chair.

Me: "I feel like that episode of Desperate Housewives where the doctor tells Susan she is in menopause." I looked at her. "You do watch Desperate Housewives, right?"

Her: (shaking her head): "No, but my mother does!"

This horse was no Mr. Ed

Darcy has been taking horseback riding lessons for the last two months. She has been wanting to do this since her "bestest" cousin Gabby started her horse fetish. If Gabby does it, so does Darcy.  I don't know if you know this, but I do not like horses (witness previous blog on horseback riding), but I thought I was safe from having to say no to Darcy's horseback lessons because I knew her father would no way in a million years allow that to happen.

This is the man who didn't want them riding bikes ("they could get hurt and end up in the emergency room...I've seen it too many times") or going ice skating ("they'll fall and someone will run over their hands and the skate blade will slice up their hands". No way was he going to allow his daughter on a two-ton, nothing much for brains between the ears, horse.

Tom: "Sure."

He said he's letting loose more where the girls are concerned.

Darcy takes horseback on Fridays at her school. I went the first day and watched. She looked like a miniature doll astride a giant two-ton, nothing much for brains between the ears horse. It was too hard for me to witness, so I started coming later after class to pick her up. There, I would find her in the barn washing and brushing down horses, her little body snug in a pair of tight jeans and Hello Kitty boots. Her face would be flushed with excitement and exertion and she would trot off after me through the field, giving me the rundown on her lesson. Everything seemed to be going alright with this after-school activity.

Until this Friday.

This Friday, when I got there to pick her up, she was still riding. I was on the phone with Gabby's mother, my sister-in-law Susan, and I didn't even notice she was still riding until I was halfway to the barn. I turned around and sat down on some bleachers sitting in the middle of the PE field next to the riding corral. I was chatting away and listening to Susan when Darcy spotted me. She was cantering around in a circle on her horse. 

She yelled to the instructor and asked if she could go around again. The instructor had her back to the corral and was talking to someone. She was no more paying attention to the cantering group of horses and children than the man on the moon. But with a nod of her head and a wave of her hand, she gave my baby permission to go around one more time.

Darcy smacked the sides of her black horse with her boots and off they went. They circled, passed by me, and as the horse turned to circle the ring, something happened. What it was, I don't know. All I know is that to me, it seemed as if the horse just wanted this midget off his back.

He stopped and started pawing and prancing as if trying to knock her off. Darcy fell forward onto his neck and then she slid off his neck and onto the ground with the reins wrapped around her hand. The horse, Smokey, didn't like the fact that something heavy was pulling his reins, so he started moving again, pulling Darcy behind her on her rump and her side.

At this point, I started yelling, "Let Go! Darcy, let go!" And it was then the horse reared up on his hind legs, shook his body, and came down on my daughter.

I started screaming like a raving lunatic. I can still hear the sound now. I threw my phone and scrambled off the bleachers faster than I'd moved in my life. I needed to get to my baby girl!

There were too many obstacles in my way. First, a locked gate, which I couldn't open, so I lifted my leg and kicked it open. Second, another fence, which I crawled under. By now, Darcy was loose from the horse and walking toward me, her face covered in dirt, bawling. Her leg wobbled each time she put weight on it.

I was hysterical. I kept telling her to stop moving, to lie down on the ground, but she wanted me. I finally reached her and had her sit on the ground. I moved trembling hands over her body as I'd been taught to do through my many hours of watching hospital TV dramas and General Hospital, desperately trying to recall my first aid training.

Two other parents leaned over the fence, asking her if she was okay, but the instructor didn't come. I was ready to call 911 when the female parent told me she didn't think the instructor knew it had even happened. 

WHAT? 

I started screaming for her to get over here, and she moseyed on over, clucking her tongue and asking what happened.

Darcy put her little arms around my waist and hung on for dear life as I got her to stand. I was holding on to her as a mother, and because my entire body was shaking. I gave the instructor a run-down in a high-pitched voice and she looked to the two side-line parents for confirmation, but I was using the wrong lingo. Apparently, I kept saying the horse bucked when he really reared up. Whatever. All I know is that his hooves stepped on my child.

Instructor: "Well, Darcy, you know the thing to do is to get back up on the horse."

Darcy started shaking her head, and for just a moment, I pictured turning around and slapping that instructor so hard that I saw her head snapping back far enough for her eyes to roll back into her head. That image disappeared as fast as it had appeared, and somehow, I pulled myself together.

Enough that I could gently push my baby toward the terrible instructor, patting her on the back.

Me: "Absolutely. Go on, get back up." 

That is exactly what I've done countless times to children who've fallen into a pool or to children who've had a bad experience in the water. I knew I had to let her get back onto that rotten, no good piece of glue horse.

And she did. She walked away from me and got on a horse, not Smokey, but on another horse. I walked out of the ring, across the field, through the parking lot, and collapsed into the arms of a parent friend.

When Darcy finished her last ride, I took the advice of various people and took her to the immediate care center. They took her off for an x-ray while I waited. The doctor came into the room and sat down before me. I tried not to panic at this behavior.

Him: "Darcy is fine. She's going to be fine. Kids bounce back from things like this, and she was lucky. I am, however, more worried about you."

Apparently, I was in shock. He kept warming my hands between his own, rubbing my arms, and talking to me in a calm, soothing voice until my trembling had improved. I highly recommend this doctor.

The horse had landed on the fat part of Darcy's thigh, so no bones were broken. By now, she had recovered from the incident, and save for a bruised hoof print on her thigh, she was good and ready to join her friends at the park for a birthday party.

It took me two hours to stop shaking. I shook through the birthday party while my friends listened as I freaked out again while telling the story. I had nightmares that evening, and any time my mind went to that horse rearing up I'd get sick to my stomach.

Darcy, on the other hand, took it all in stride. She'll be back in the ring next Friday. I'm not sure where I will be...but rest assured it will not be in that field.