Just thinking...

We use these posts as a kind of journal so I figured I should write a little bit before all gets lost in time. The last 3 weeks I have been doing a Pediatric Emergency/trauma rotation in Brooklyn that has been at times like a fast and testimony meeting--sometimes a little slow and boring, then other times trying to detach myself so I don't look soft. And other times like testimony meetings in Texas where you're left wondering what the cotton pickin' heck just happened in here?
Most of the time it is asthma, croup, pneumonia and the diarrhea/vomiting or a few stitches here and there, broken bones,etc. But sometimes it's the kid who gets a 22 bullet (unfired) lodged in his ear or a toy truck fire engine antenna through the top of his mouth into his brain, swallowed a safety pin, or who's face lost a fight to a pit bull, or swallowed roach spray, or car accidents, gang fights, or not alive at all. Most are hispanic and no one else speaks spanish so I get funneled to being the guy up front on most. Those experiences when you're doing CPR for an hour and they ask if you're tired and you are but say you're fine and the mom is in the back of the room screaming not to stop, "save my baby!!" moaning and wailing...for the 2nd time tonight another kid in heaven for Christmas. When the night's over and you quietly get back in your car, slowly, and hit the Expressway and the roads are empty and quiet and get home and climb into a warm bed after going into each of the kids' rooms and giving them each a kiss on the cheek...and you wake up---and all is well.
I started reading Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" for the season and Payton said he wanted to go "feed the ducks down by the water too" like tiny Tim so we did today down on the Sound. These were mostly seagulls and Canadian geese with a few ducks, but with the sun out and watching him try to get the birds closer and closer and start pointing out the ducks from the seagulls...and then watch him get scared when they were fighting over scraps on his shoes...it was a calm moment to just sit back and think "Thanks Lord, for giving me these darn kids."
And all reading this with little ones, maybe sometimes impatient like me, frustrated with everything no one ever warned us about kids--then realizing that their Decembers at home are numbered... and you start taking every funny face, awkward question, tight hug, bit of astonishment, all of their little dreams, and for me this year, calling it Christmas.