A Few Minutes of Normal

Today we braved church as a whole family again, something that's been becoming easier and easier as the months have gone on.  Since the anesthesiologists won't work on her if she's sick, and everything she gets seems to hit her harder than other kids, we're always very worried about exposing her to stuff.  My germophobia gets a bit of a reprieve as the weather warms up, but one place it still rears its ugly head is in the toddler Sunday School class, otherwise known as Nursery.  Even though we know Audrey would love Nursery, in order to protect her from infection we usually keep her with us in the adult classes or else take her home for her nap, as often she is very fussy by that point of the afternoon.  But today, a funny thing happened on the way to her naptime.  We were distracted by chatting with an old friend who'd come to visit for the day, and so when my 8 year old asked if he could take Audrey to his class to show them how much she'd grown, I said yes.  I intended to go get her in just a couple of minutes, but instead got caught up listening to our friend's conversation.  Several minutes later I hurried down the hall and passed the Nursery on my way to my son's class.  I paused for a moment as I saw a sweet sight... her name was on the list of children who were supposed to be in the youngest Nursery class.  It made me feel a twinge of longing and regret, and my eyes strayed momentarily through the classroom window at the sweet little toddlers singing Old MacDonald with the teacher.  I could just see Audrey standing in the middle of them, in her little polka dot dress.....  wait a minute.  That was her.  Standing in the middle of the seated children, back to me but obviously entranced with this wonderful place she'd discovered.  I hesitated for a moment, then knew what I needed to do.  Wouldn't you?  .....Duh!   I ran back to get my husband's phone to take a picture.  When I returned to the window, my amusement suddenly turned to panic.  It was snacktime.

I burst through the door in a flurry of protective paranoia.... "Oh I'm sorry! Audrey can't eat!"  I exclaimed.  The teacher serenely looked up and said, "Oh, that's what I thought.  Don't worry."  The teacher and I had never met before, and I was impressed that in spite of it being Audrey's first visit, she knew who Audrey was and what to watch for.  She explained that she and her husband were in school for medical training.

I looked at what snacks they were having, saw how excited Audrey was about goldfish crackers, rice chex and animal crackers, and I faltered.  She's been having trouble getting some foods stuck in her throat this past week, but dissolving foods and well chewed ones are still passing ok.  "Maybe we can try it," I said, "and I'll just stay with her to see how it goes."  So the wonderful teachers sanitized everyone's hands, then broke up Audrey's animal crackers into small pieces, and Audrey chewed everything carefully.

I saw on her face at one point that uncomfortable look that told me she was getting backed up in her throat, but the water everyone had been waiting for arrived quickly, they served her first and she excitedly grabbed her cup and drank deeply, and had no issue with gagging or choking on the bits of food in her throat.  I was so proud of her, and thankful to her teachers for being so fantastic.  Audrey actually finished all of her little snack, and happily went off to play with the toys.  I was floored, and so relieved.  I spent the next few minutes just watching her play and thinking to myself, this is really, really nice.  I hope she doesn't wind up super sick.  But oh, this is really, really nice.