More chatting with Madison
The hospital in which Madison was born plays a big part in the story of her birth and adoption. She likes to hear about me rushing down the halls to get to the maternity ward — to get to her. This is her favorite part of the story and the piece she asks for most often. I’ve told her that someday we will go back and visit there so she can see where she was born.
Yesterday we were driving to an event and I told her we were going to pass the hospital. She craned her neck to see it but it was outside Noah’s window (so called even when Noah isn’t occupying the seat next to it, which he wasn’t) and we were on the freeway going fast. I told her we’d see it again going home.
This time she caught sight of it because she could see the big lit-up letters spelling out its name.
“Oh!” she breathed. “There it is!”
She really wants to go back and see it.
“To see the babies,” she says. “But I won’t turn INTO a baby again, right, Mommy? Because I’m a big girl now.”
I think going back there is something we need to do soon. That way I can show her the door I came in and the halls I rushed down. We can get french fries at the Wendy’s where I took Noah the day he met her. Hopefully we can peek at the babies and maybe — just maybe — I can get a kind-hearted nurse who will let her see one of the rooms so she can picture where she lived her first three days.
She has taken to heart our previous conversation about staying with Pennie. Maybe passing the hospital put it at the forefront of her mind because she brought it up after while we were tooling around looking for a bank machine to pay for parking.
“Mommy, Pennie should babysit me and Noah while you go to a meeting,” she told me.
“Or maybe Daddy and I could go have coffee while Pennie babysits for you guys,” I suggested.
“If you bring me a danish. No, two danish. No, three danish!”
Then she was quiet for a bit.
“At our house, not Pennie’s,” she added. “And with Noah.”
So those are the terms. That seems doable. I told her she can call Pennie and let her know she’d like to have her come over and babysit. Noah will be happy to set himself up with a video game and ignore them both so Pennie will still get alone time with Madison and Madison will get alone time with her.
This just made me sigh a big sigh of relief. It feels like tension melting away from Madison’s shoulders.
A trip to the hospital sounds like it is in your future…soon! I think that will go a long way in her little mind.
This story somehow makes me very happy.