If you really knew my daughter, you’d realize that YOU are the one with the problem.

Yesterday was a big day.

It was, as Number 4 coined it, Cast-off Day.

4 weeks of missing swim practices, and swim championships, and digging in the sand with one arm, and not really being able to enjoy a bath.

4 weeks of waiting so that she could make up for lost time in  the last 2 weeks of summer.

4 weeks of itching and coming up with really creative methods of scratching were ending yesterday.

We got to the office early.

She could barely contain herself in the waiting room.

She couldn’t stop talking about all the things she was going to do once that sucker came off.

She couldn’t sit still while the nurse broke out the saw and got to work.

She couldn’t sit still while she had another set of x-rays taken to make sure everything was okay.

I tried to contain her, and stop her from touching every piece of equipment in the room until the doctor came in.

He checked her out.

He showed us the x-rays.

“Everything is healing just the way we want it to,” he said.

“The bones have all come together nicely.”

Number 4 and I smiled at each other.

“But I’m not ready to leave it totally unprotected yet,” he continued.

I gulped.

Wait.

What?

Number 4 didn’t really hear what he said.

“So, we’re going to need to put another cast on.”

Number 4 heard that.

And she fucking lost it.

And when I say lost it,

I mean a meltdown of epic proportions.

A Helen-Keller-before-Anne-Sullivan-taught-her-to-communicate kind of meltdown.

She went fucking ballistic.

Screaming.

Hysterical crying.

Thrashing.

Begging.

Pleading.

The doctor went from being cool and funny to being a complete, stone-cold, grade-A, douchebag.

“Why don’t you move down the hall to a room where no one can hear you,” he said.

I wanted to smash the monitor that he couldn’t peel his eyes off of, as well as his head, with a sledgehammer.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Just shut the kid up?

Yes, she was out-of-control.

But what 6-year-old wouldn’t be?

When we first went to see… McMeanie, he had said she’d need a cast for 3-4 weeks.

After looking at the initial x-rays, he said 4 weeks in a cast.

When Number 4 expressed disappointment, hoping for 3 weeks, McMeanie made a point of saying, “Well, you’re lucky. If it were your mom, she’d need a cast for 6 or 8 weeks. You’ll only need one for 4. Because kids heal quickly.”

And we took his word for it.

This is our first broken bone.

Never in a million years did I think that there was a possibility that after 4 weeks she wouldn’t be in the clear.

That they would take that mothereffer off only to put another one back on 20 minutes later.

Why didn’t he tell us there was a chance 4 weeks wouldn’t be long enough?

At least I would have been able to prepare her for that possibility.

And I wouldn’t have made a bunch of promises that I couldn’t keep.

We were totally blindsided.

So getting Number 4 out of the room she was causing a scene in,

and down the hallway,

around the corner,

past the sign-out desk,

and into another room,

was not easy.

Or fun.

She took off in the other direction, screaming.

Like a wild animal.

“I  HATE YOU!”

“YOU’RE THE MEANEST MOM IN THE WORLD!”

“YOU’RE THE WORST. MOM. EVEEEEERRRRRR!”

“I WON’T DO IT!”

“PLEASE MOMMY, PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEEEEAAAAASE!!!”

“DON’T LET THEM DO IT MOMMY. DON’T LET THEM DO IT!”

It was awful.

And while I know she was totally out-of-control, I understood how she felt.

But every single person in that office stood, frozen, staring at me in disapproval.

Was my child seriously the only human being they’d ever seen react like this?

I know Number 4 does things to the extreme.

But I’ve seen kids have similar episodes in a grocery store when they can’t get a Snickers bar.

I was getting close to a Helen Keller moment myself.

I finally got her into the room.

She was a total disaster.

I thought they’d give me a minute to just help Number 4 get herself together.

I wanted to let her deal with it for a minute.

Alone.

Just the two of us.

And then, if necessary, I’d move onto the Moonstruck, Snap out of it! treatment.

But two nurses came in right behind me.

Two nurses who don’t know Number 4 and her personality at all.

I’m pretty sure the name tag on the blond one read

Nurse Ratched.

She was wicked.

Mean.

Without one tiny smidgen of compassion or understanding anywhere in her body.

She did everything short of tell Number 4 to shut the fuck up.

Number 4 put up a pretty good fight.

And I didn’t really care.

I didn’t blame her.

When all was said and done and she had her new red cast on, she came over to me and sobbed.

Her cast wasn’t dry yet; it was still a little sticky.

She flung her arms around my neck and the only thing Nurse Rached could say was,

“You’re going to ruin your mom’s shirt. Yep. Yep, she did. She got casting on your shirt.”

She rushed over to me to try and wipe it off, while Number 4 buried her face in my chest and cried.

“I really don’t care,” I said to her.

“It’s a shirt.”

If she had any idea what else had been smeared on it before I left the house she probably would have had me quarantined.

I just wanted to get the fuck out of that place.

We still had to stop at the sign-out desk to make an appointment in two weeks.

I was hoping maybe we’d be able to make it in 10 days.

Get that thing off before school started.

But they wouldn’t do it which got Number 4 all wound up again.

And then the receptionist started in on Number 4.

And that’s where I drew the line.

“Really? Can you cut the kid some slack, please?” I snapped.

“We weren’t prepared for the possibility of having a cast put back on,” I continued.

“She’s upset,” I added.

The woman just looked at me over her glasses, in judgment.

“But it’s not healed,” she said.

“I understand that,” I said.

“I’m not questioning whether she needs another cast or not. But no one told us it might be a possibility. She’s six. She’s pissed. Give her some time.”

The woman tried to be nicer.

She attempted to engage Number 4 in conversation.

Number 4 wasn’t having it.

Neither was I, frankly.

We finally got in the car.

I had bought a celebratory doughnut on the way to the office.

We weren’t celebrating, but it helped take her mind off things.

We talked about disappointment.

About trying to find the silver lining. Again.

And then she was okay.

Later that day when her dad got home from work she sat down by the pool with him and she told him all about it.

She told him she had “a big freak out” at the doctor’s office.

She felt bad.

And I felt bad for her.

She came over to me,  gave me big hug, looked up at me, and smiled.

“Sorry Mommy,” she said.

She’s a good kid.

A really fucking good, talented, passionate, amazing kid.

For a moment I felt the need to call the doctor’s office, and to make them understand this.

To go off on the staff there. To explain to them how incredible Number 4 is. To make them see why she reacted the way she did.

To defend my daughter. And my parenting.

To make them realize that we aren’t total assholes.

And that I’m not, in fact, the Worst. Mom. Ever.

But I didn’t.

It wouldn’t have made a difference.

I know what I know.

That’s the important thing, and the only thing that matters.

One day, we’ll look back on this saga and laugh.

Until then, I think we’ll turn some more lemons into lemonade.

Number 4’s been begging to have a tag sale.

Better use that cast to her advantage while we still can. 😉

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