The baby doctor

My husband and I went to see a baby doctor yesterday. The last of our children is heading over the hill this year, and our grandchildren aren't babies anymore.  In fact half of them are old enough to make us great-grandparents. At this point in their lives, they couldn't afford a baby anymore than we could at their ages.

We are at a time in our lives where we now have some spending money left over at the end of each pay period, unlike our grandkids who struggle like most people in this economy to make ends meet. A new baby bed wouldn't set us back in our monthly bills, and purchasing disposable diapers wouldn't mean having to eat Hamburger Helper twice a week like years ago.

We both agree, we miss having babies around. Nothing I love better than nuzzling the neck of a newborn.

As we walked into the doctor's office, I thought of the mom of one of my students who told me about her fiftieth birthday surprise. Her oldest would be going off to high school, the middle child to middle school and her youngest to kindergarten.  The day before her fiftieth, she discovered she'd be diapering a new darling. At age fifty! Wow! It's never too late to have a baby.  

I've been a mother-figure to thousands of students in my thirty-seven year career. I love little ones, and hubby does, too. We met when our kids were grown. We don't have children together, but we agree, we'd have been the perfect parents.

We strolled confidently into the baby doctor's office yesterday for a consultation. After a Q&A session and options of where the procedure should be done: in his office, an outpatient  surgery suite or in the operating room, we decided in-office would work for all of us. The baby doctor claimed he could do the procedure right then and there.

My heart was thumping. My husband's foot was jiggling. Had we made the right decision? We thought this visit was for a consultation. The doc mentioned all of the risks, and then asked  Bill to sign a consent form if he felt ready to commit. The doctor asked if I wanted to observe the procedure. Of Course! I watch Life in the ER on cable channel.

Bill was brave. He climbed up on the table. Out came a sterile sheet, gloves and surgical tools on a tray, and the procedure began.

That baby doctor couldn't have been 35 years old. He looked more like twenty-five. I'm telling you he was a baby. And a doctor. A surgeon, a plastic surgeon. He removed hubby's benign cyst with a flick of the wrist. With another flick, he looked at me and said, "If you want to take care of that (he patted his jaw and pointed to mine) I do that, too. Set up a consultation with my nurse."
That little baby faced doc can stick to cysts, he's not tugging my wrinkles.

What? WHAT! You mean you thought Bill and I were...? Really? ME, oh ummm, No way!

Be careful, my writer friends. Playing with words can be fun, but you don't want to alienate or tick off your reader.