I wanted Mom, too

The girl is not a complainer. She's a drama queen sometimes, but that goes with the territory of being female and fourteen; it's her divine right, and she'll outgrow it. She's also prone to hyperbole, but she comes by that honestly, having learned it well from my father, who was the master.

This evening Char went out with her sister and a few friends, leaving me with the kids and assuming, I suppose, that she would come home and all three would be happy, healthy, and in one piece.

She shouldn't assume.

I did all the things I knew would be expected; I made dinner for the kids, helped them with the dishes and then homework, fed the cats and the dog and watched out the back door as Kevin played with Tank, and vaguely heard Rachel wander past, complaining that she wasn't feeling very well. Alex asked her what was wrong and she blew it off as "just a little crampy."

Alex jabbed back with, "Again? Didn't we just suffer through you doing this like two weeks ago?"

I mostly tuned them out, worrying more that Kevin and Tank were going to wind up in the pool. I didn't even recall that she had said she wasn't feeling well until much later.

After Kevin came back inside and was in the shower, Rachel curled up next to me on the couch and said she was really feeling crappy. She tried to stretch out and lie there with her head in my lap, something she rarely does anymore, but within a couple of minutes she had her knees drawn up and was crying.

Being the genius that I am, I assumed she was just coming down with a stomach virus and that there was a 50-50 chance I'd get barfed on, but I can deal with that. Alex heard her sniffling and came out of his room to see what was wrong, and by the time he was in the living room she was sobbing.

Rachel cries when she's upset; she doesn't cry when she's sick or just feeling a little out of sorts. The sobbing made me sit up a little straighter and start to run through a mental list of what I could do to make her feel better, but when she grabbed at her stomach and was calling me "Daddy" in between breaths, I wanted to panic.

I only get called Daddy when she wants something, or something is very, very wrong. This felt very, very wrong. I picked her up, something else that hasn't happened in a long time, and headed for the door, with Alex a step behind me assuring me he would watch Kevin, call his mother, and call Erin because he was pretty sure we would be out pretty late.

Traffic fell into place; I was well over the speed limit but wasn't hindered by other cars and luckily there were no cops around. We hit the ER fifteen minutes after I left the house and she was being seen 5 minutes after that. And she was in a hell of a lot of pain, the sobbing turning from "Daddy" to "I want Mom."

I understand that there has to be some immunity to other peoples' pain and parental anxiety on the part of ER personnel. I have no issue with that. Rachel was in no position for the ER doctor to speak with her directly, what I would have normally preferred, but because he was trying to talk to me and she was still crying, I was distracted. I'm sure I looked Iike I was distracted. There wasa flurry of paperwork and my cell phone ringing because Char was trying to find out what the hell was going on, and Rachel was still crying and wanting her mother.

At some point I was signing my name to another form and the kid taking it glanced at Rachel and asked, "Does that bother you, that she wants her mother?"

What?

Why the hell would it bother me? A kid crying for her mother doesn't mean that she wants her father less; it means she wants her mother. You know, the person a kid normally associates with soft touches and warm kisses to the forehead that mean everything will be fine. That pissed me off a little, that in the middle of my kid's pain another, who should be old enough to know better, asked something as stupid as that.

For the record: absolutely not. I was there when Rachel needed me, but she also needed her mother. It's not a competition.

Half an hour later Char was there, falling all over Rachel with apologies for not being home when she needed her, and almost as soon as Char's hand was on her forehead Rachel calmed considerably. We were both there, we were both promising her that she was going to be all right. By that point she wasn't in pain thanks to a plethora of drugs, but she just needed Mom. And Mom was there as fast as she could get there.

The only issue at hand was waiting until it had been long enough from the time she'd had dinner until she could go into surgery.

And I forgot that part; appendicitis.

At one this morning they wheeled her back; she hardly looked like the same kid who was writhing in pain earlier, and she didn't seem all that afraid of what was going to happen.

Now it's nearly 5 in the morning. Char is staying with Rachel and kicked me out so that one of us would be here when Alex and Kevin get up. Rachel is going to be fine and will probably come home late in the afternoon.

But for a little while, from the moment she called me "daddy" again in between sobs, I admit, I was terrified.

She'll be fine, yes, but damn I don't think I ever want to be called that ever again, not unless she's trying to charm me into doing something she wants me to.