Humble Pie is Yucky!

 

 The happy little boy who finally got tubes put in his ears despite his bonehead mom!

The big brother who has been really good about all the attention Kai has been receiving lately!

You always hear the phrase "Motherhood humbles you", on December 23rd I got a good dose of the humbles that I think will last me a few years...thank you very much.    Kai was scheduled to get tubes put in his ears on December 23rd with a 6:30 a.m. check in time.  We have really been anticipating this surgery because of his chronic ear infections, sleep issues, balance and speech issues.  We have had high hopes that this simple procedure was going to be somewhat of a cure all.   The night before the surgery, I slept with one eye open because I was so worried that I wouldn't wake up on time and we would miss the appointment.   Dan manages to wake me up at 5:30 and by 6:00 a.m. I scoop up my little dumpling from his bed and off to Minneapolis we go.  All is going great, Kai is content, the drive is stress free and we make it on time.    We get checked in with the paper work and are in the waiting room waiting to get called to pre-op when I hear "Alexander K..".   I look up and there stands a brunette Nurse Ratchett (remember One Flew Over the Cuckcoo's Nest), the humourless, efficient nurse that took revenge on her patients.   I swallow hard and decide not to inform her that we call our little guy Kai Kai Sweetie Pie.   Once we are in the pre-op room, Alexander is weighed, temp, BP taken and new clothes are put on him with much efficiency.   Then Nurse Ratchett starts asking me questions in rapid firing session. I feel the need to answer her questions quickly and accurately, like a contestant on a game show.   "Has he had a fever in the last 24 hours? No!  When was the last time he ate solids? 9:00 p.m. When was his last milk bottle?  3:23 a.m.  Uh oh...I get "the look" from Nurse Ratchet and my stomach sinks to my feet.   What is wrong I ask?   She said "no milk after 12:00 p.m."   Are you sure?   I don't want to believe that I made this huge mistake!  My mind immediately goes to finding someone I can blame this on...this CAN NOT be my fault!   I immediately say well I received a voice message from a nurse who told me solids til midnight and a bottle til 4:00 a.m. (this is truly what I thought I had heard).   Nurse Ratchett turns and looks at me squarely in the eye and says "I personally phoned you yesterday and left that message."  She then corrects me with what the right times of the message.  As I'm shrinking in shame, I'm thinking darn it, I can't blame her!  It still has to be somebody elses fault because I don't want to be the person responsible for such a STUPID but CRITICAL mistake.   So they send me home and we have to reschedule Kai's appointment.   On the drive home, my mind is racing to find someone to blame...Ah Ha! Dan...somehow I need to make this is HIS fault.  Ugh...I just don't want to be responsible for doing something that is so careless and affects my little guy so negatively.  I hate that part!   In the end, every which way I turned it, there was nobody else to blame but me.  Let me tell you sometimes humble pie is really yucky tasting.   By the time I get half way home, I realize that I am going to have to tell my Type A husband that his C minus wife, who he thinks flys by the seat of her pants screwed up their little boys very important surgery.   So what do you think I did?   I did what every educated self-respecting woman would do and I cried and sobbed in my husbands arms!  Dan was supportive and understood I felt embarrassed and sad that I had failed my little guy.  

This whole episode makes me pause because I wonder what real criminals feel like after they commit a crime?  Do they have regret?  Do they want a 'redo'?  I by the way, got to have a 'redo' and I decided if Kai and I had to stay up all night because he wouldn't sleep without a bottle in the middle of the night, we would do it.   And that is exactly what happened.  He woke up at 3:30 a.m. for his bottle and we were awake until 5:00 and had to get up at 5:30...but the lack of sleep doesn't matter because Kai Kai Sweetie Pie now has ear tubes in his sweet little dumpling ears!  Yeah!