Bye Bye Birdies

In Avian News today, we have one Scared Little Bird, and Five Birds Who Have Flown the Coop.

We'll start with Scared Little Bird. Today was Daughter #1's VCUG to determine if the STING procedure worked to fix the functioning of her kidney/ureter. The diagnostic VCUG, which involves a catheter, some dye, and being made to "pee on a bed" while technicians/doctor watch where her urine goes (hopefully out, not back up to the kidneys) is definitely my daughter's vote for the Least Desirable of the Procedures. As this was her third time, she came to the hospital armed with anxiety. The Freaking Out began shortly after she changed into the tiger-print gown. I knew we were in for trouble when the x-ray tech appraised my little puddle of tears and left, saying, "I'm just going to go make sure we have TWO radiologists available for this one." And it was not much longer before we were being offered the option of rescheduling, with an order of nitrous oxide to smooth things along. The helpful tech offered, "She's a Prime Candidate for Sedation."

I certainly plan on suppressing that medical observation when she's of an age where sedatives are readily available without prescription.

Honestly, I pretty much wanted to be the mom who made her daughter get up there and be brave, even if it took restraints. Today's ordeal wasn't even a treatment! It was diagnostic, and we were looking at delaying the discovery of whether or not we need to redo something called the STING. Let's get it over with, already!

Plus, I took the afternoon off work. And another thing: I like Foley Catheters! A frequent urinator, I appreciated my 24-hours-plus with a Foley after both of my c-sections, when I could lie happily on a bed and pee without getting up or Even Knowing I Was Relieving Myself.

But my daughter was having none of it, and Those People who were faced with dealing with her today or meeting her later, under goofier, more narcotics-alleviated circumstances, were all too happy to reschedule us. So off we went to McDonald's, because it's ironically RIGHT INSIDE Children's Hospital, where I rewarded my daughter for being, as the Tech described her, "Verifiably Fearful," versus Downright Ornery.

Meanwhile, tonight was our goodbye to our five little chicks (whose feet now resemble those of full-grown chickens, the first frontier, apparently of chicks becoming Not So Cute). No more "Cheerios wif Duckies," which our 2-year-old looked forward to each morning. We grew pretty attached to those little peckers, particularly when we thought we were going to lose one last week (it looked like it had "dropsy"...?). Despite the belated realization that we had no idea what we were doing, and probably had no business bringing chickens into our kitchen, I think we turned out to be pretty good Chick Sitters. Thank you to my daughters' Godmother, who manages to come up with the coolest things for us to do and experience.