Mr. Mom #1

This will be the first post of this week as Mr. Mom.

My wife, (blink blink) Angie had surgery Friday morning. A great host of neighborhood friends have lined up to be helpful with a little bit of everything. Miss Nicole, as Gracie calls her, picked her up from the school bus and kept her Friday until I got home from the hospital to get her. This is the story of Gracie, mommy, and Mr. Mom beginning with Friday morning until now. PSA........... drinks aside please.

First lets start with with the hand-off. Angie had be telling Gracie what was going to happen in terms she could understand for weeks now.

Angie said." The doctor is going to cut mommy's belly and take the tummy aches out and I will not be able to move much for a while. Daddy is going to take care off you until I feel better. Miss Nicole is going to help and so are the neighbors. We will take you to Miss Nicole Friday morning and she will get you to and from school until daddy gets home. Then daddy will bring you to see me Saturday morning and Sunday you can come with him and bring me home. I need you to be a big girl and not cry and listen to daddy ,,,, Okay?"

Gracie said, " Okay, but sometimes the tears just have to come.............."

So on Friday morning everything is fine until mommy turns to walk out the door and Gracie grabs her leg and says, "but mommy, I don't want you to go"

Tears follow.

Daddy cuddles her for a minute while mom makes an escape then Miss Nicole takes over. She only cried for a minute but it just makes it hard.

Surgery (abdominal entry hysterectomy for those who didn't figure it out) went about an hour long due to massive amounts of scare tissue and an ovarian cyst. Other than the delay, it went fine.

I arrived home at around 4 to pick up Gracie who had mashed a finger in a van door. It is now time for daddy to be daddy and play. We go get take out Chinese food for dinner, go for a bike ride, play Candy Land, eat chocolate and run with scissors. All those daddy type things. Gracie had made a card, as had her friend Kaitlyn, and now Gracie has bought a balloon and flowers. Once home Gracie laid down on my lap and feel straight to sleep. Big day for little girls. She did have just a few things to say during this time.

"I miss mommy" was said 27 times.
"when will mommy be home?" was said 18 times.
"Will the tummy aches be gone?" was said 4 times.
"Can I take my doctor kit to play with at the hospital?" was said 3 times
"Will mommy share her balloon with me?" was said twice.
"Is it inappropriate to be naked?" was said once. (what??? where did you get the word inappropriate?)

Saturday morning arrives and we are off to breakfast at IHOP and then to go visit mommy. Doctors kit in tow of course. We arrive at the hospital and mom still has the morphine pump going and is a bit off color and really just not looking too good. Gracie was a little concerned by her appearance at first but tried to visit and be quiet as best as she could. She got mommy hugs and mommy kisses and then played with the balloon that mommy had to share.

Then the doctor arrives. Not the best bedside manner in the world, but not terrible either. I asked Gracie to come sit with me off to the side and stay out of the way. She climbed up in my lap and we messed around while the doctor was talking. I wasn't paying attention to the doctor and neither was Gracie, yet. Then I heard the doctor say, "lets look at that incision." He had already opened the girdle and exposed Angie from knee to belly button leaving only the bandage as a covering. When he said this both Gracie and I turned our heads toward them. As we did he lifted the bandage and blood was hanging and running everywhere. His comment was just, "oh, this really needs changed, I'll get somebody to do that now" and he covered it back up. Gracie's reaction was to bury her head in my shoulder and begin to weep and sob uncontrollably. Once it was covered back up and she was reassured that momma was fine she said, "the bleed scares me" Momma hit her morphine button and went back to la la land and we left a little while after that.

On the way down to the car Gracie decided that this was my fault and I needed a good talking to. She informed me that, " I didn't need to see that, you know better than that and we should have left and been out in the hallway" She chewed me pretty good all the way down to the car. I tried to explain that I didn't know the doctor was going to do that or we would have left. Gracie made a new rule, doctor comes in, we go out. Gracie is right as usual.

Once we got to the car the anger settled out a little and she became sad again and had a question for me.

"daddy, is mommy still coming home tomorrow?"

"yes sweety, as long as the bleeding has stopped she will get to come home"

"daddy, why did they cut up her vagina like that?"

(daddy's are not supposed to have to deal with questions like this)

"baby, they didn't do anything to her vagina"

(pronounced 'ba-gina' by the way)

"yes they did, I saw it, I say all the bleed and stuff on it, they cut it up, I saw it.. I didn't need to see that"

"no sweety, you saw the blood run down from her tummy, the blood came from her tummy not her vagina"

"oh, can we go shopping on the way home"

" yes sweety, we can go shopping"

We stopped at the grocery on the way home and played the rest of the night. Gracie even helped me grill pork chops for dinner. We painted with water colors, drank frozen coke, ate more chocolate and played with explosives before running with scissors and jumping up and down on the bed while holding sticks. Gracie again crash landed and slept well. She did crawl in with daddy about midnight to sleep though.

Sunday morning we went off to church. Gracie was not overly well behaved today but she agreed to come to church and play with her friends. After church we met the Halls at CiCi's pizza and then went to pick up mommy.

Since being home mommy has been running a fever and vomiting regularly. We may even need to go back, don't know yet. She is able to stand up straight and walk around but she has gas pains and nausea she just cant shake.

Daddy took Gracie to the school bus this morning only to be told that she wants to stay home with mommy. She is gone to school, I have no idea what the rest of the day will bring.

My plan is to do some laundry now and dishes and wait to see what happens next.


To be continued...........................................