I never thought this day would come, but it did. My twelve-year-old had to have emergency surgery, and I couldn’t mess with her.

I had great plans to get her home, tuck her into bed, then put weird things on her head while she was asleep and take pictures, pictures that I would then post on this blog. I even told her I was going to, naming awesome things like this weird crocheted Viking hat I was going to photograph her in. The more she cried and begged me not to, the more determined I became.

Then something horrible happened. Apparently, I either grew up, or I developed a conscience. Either way, it’s a very unsettling feeling and I’m not really sure what to do with it.

We got to her surgery appointment, and I had to hold my scared 12yrold in my lap while she cried quietly. That’s not an easy thing to do when the 12yrold is as tall as mine is, and when my lap is making a steady progress towards disappearing like mine is. But the best thing ever happened: during her quiet little tears of fear, I asked her what would make her feel better and she said, “Can you tweeze my eyebrows while I’m still under anesthesia?” I held her close and assured her that I would climb over the nurses to get to those eyebrows, if that’s what it took. (Sadly, I forgot all about it, but even that’s not my fault because she looked really, really bad when she came out and trust me, eyebrows were the last thing wrong with her face. She still has all of her eyebrows, in fact, because now that she’s recovered she won’t let me near them with anything pointy.)

So even though groggy pictures of my daughter with the dog perched on her head never happened (the dog happened, just not the pictures), I did manage to sneak a few pictures with my phone of my daughter’s attempts to communicate via dry erase board. It’s not even in English.