Vegetable Soup

Ever have one of those mornings where the best thing to do is simply go back to bed & wait for tomorrow?  Yeah, well…

This morning, Grady had a 7:15 appointment with the cosmetic surgeon.  So, the kids needed to be up, dressed & in the car by 6:30.  I decided to get Grady ready first.  I walked into his bedroom & the air smelt funky.  I turned on the light & found a bed full of puke.  Grady woke up, look at me with groggy eyes & muttered, “Mommy, I went hop-a-dee-a.”

hop-a-dee-a: noun Grady’s word for anything excrement related.  Inspired by the word “diarrhea.”

Luckily, Adam had not left for work yet, so he quickly gave Grady a bath while I got the other two kids ready.  We still managed to leave on time & made it to our appointment a little early.  Of course, it was raining & of course, I forgot an umbrella.  The kids at least had coats with hoods.  I was not so fortunate & got drenched before walking into the air conditioned building.

I was casually chatting with a nurse as I checked in.  All of a sudden, I heard Grady yell out, “It’s hop-a-dee-a Mommy!”  I whirled around and there stood poor Ava, puking in her hands.  The receptionist, who was a teenager, looked up and started yelling, “Oh @%$#!” over and over again.  Seriously.  I almost told her to shut it because the last thing I needed was my kids learning that word.  Instead, I frantically looked for a garbage can, but I guess they don’t keep those handy in waiting rooms.  The nurse ended up handing me the garbage can from the office, but it was too late.  The mess had already been made…oh, and did I mention that the waiting room was carpeted??

By this time, Grady was standing on his chair making sure everyone & their brother knew there was hop-a-dee-a all over the floor.  Garrett meanwhile kept trying to inspect the mess & pointed out he thought there were carrots in there.

Another nurse came out with a washcloth for Ava.  She wiped her face & her shoes.  I had a weird “mom moment” then.  I was standing there holding the garbage can while someone else was taking care of my kid.  I felt like I should be doing something to help, so I started to clean up the mess.  However, I was told that maintenance had been called to take care of it.  So, I settled for keeping track of the boys.

We sat in the waiting room until they called us back.  The seating was arranged in a U-shape.  The puke (which was now covered in a powder that smelled like oranges) was near the bottom of the “U,” so everyone positioned themselves on either side of it.  I can only imagine the internal dialogue taking place…

The nurse eventually took us back to our room.  The boys were nuts.  They kept trying to run around the tiny room, while attempting to open drawers & play with the garbage can lid.  They both got “the look” from me, but it didn’t phase them.  So, I mustered up my best “if you don’t stop it right now, you’re getting your butt whacked” look.  They didn’t even bat an eye.  Even the doctor commented about how “strong-willed” my boys were.

Thankfully, the appointment was quick.  Grady’s scar is healing & we go back in December.

We had to go back through the waiting room on our way out.  There, with his foot resting where the puke used to be, was a gentleman dressed to the nines.  I picked up Grady before he could squeak out a syllable of the word “hop-a-dee-a” and got right out of there.

I kid you not, as I write this, the song playing from “Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!” is “Yea!, Yea!, Yea! It’s a perfect day!  Yea, Yea! Yea!  It’s a perfect day!”

yeeeaahhhhh…I beg to differ.