Mother, Daughter

1.
If I am not around when my wife nurses my son, she watches hospital dramas on television—not the crappy daytime soaps, but the better night-time ones. E.R. Grey’s Anatomy. House. That kind of thing. And OK, I admit it, I watch House too.

2.
My daughter, Cora, makes me tell bedtime stories—not that I dislike telling stories. It takes little arm-twisting, on her part, to get me to tell them. When I give her a choice between a book and a made-up bedtime story, she chooses the story. When I offer two books or one story, she’s tempted but goes for the story. Three books, though, and my lazy brain is off the hook. When I’m tired, I tell her it’s a book night.

Our made-up stories began years ago, when I told her one about a nice monster whose pet mice constantly steal bites of her cheese. Cora asked for that story again the next night. Then, another night, she requested a different story with the nice monster and her naughty mice; then another; then the monster acquired a pet bat; and soon Cora inserted herself as a character in these stories. She would show up at the crucial moment, hug the nice monster, and produce a piece of cheese from behind her back. Cora’s arrivals invariably killed the drama and sapped the suspense from every scene I crafted; yet making life easier for this beleaguered monster gave Cora pride and a sense of power. So we kept it up.

Later, we developed new stories in which Cora and her friend Cowboy would travel through a portal to the Magic Kingdom, where she would rescue a hapless prince from not-so-nice monsters, witches, wizards, and dragons. In these stories, Cora is a knight who flies a Pegasus pony and wields a magic wand. The Prince calls Cora on her cell phone, pleading for help. Cora and Cowboy hurry through the portal. Cora uses her magic to turn the mischief-makers into something harmless, say butterflies or fluffy bunnies, then she and Cowboy escort the Prince back to the castle where the grateful King and Queen feed them all lunch. The End.

Then came the “Zoodoo” series, in which Cora helps a girl named Zoodoo return loose animals to their cages at the zoo. That was soon followed by the “Ziggy and Twiggy” stories, in which Cora counsels a pair of lazy, grouchy twins to get along.

No doubt I’m forgetting one or two other series. It makes me sad to know some of our characters could be lost from memory forever. That’s why I’m writing down, here, the premise of our newest series—the “Doctor Shocker” stories.

3.
Patients come to Dr. Shocker with strange problems. They have measle-spots that change colors every few seconds and sting when they change. Perhaps ugly horns grow out of the patients’ heads. Maybe these patients have colds that cause flecks of banana to fly from their noses when they sneeze; or a hundred fuzzy caterpillars caravan around their necks; or they jump off diving boards into frozen pools, and icicles fall and become stuck in their noses. You get the idea. In these stories, Cora is the nurse at Dr. Shocker’s office. Cora asks the patients what is wrong, takes their temperatures and blood pressures, and fetches the good doctor.

Dr. Shocker invariably suggests radical cures for her patients. In fact, some might call Dr. Shocker’s treatments “silly,” or “dangerous,” or even “shocking.” Fortunately for all concerned, Cora intervenes with common sense advice. For instance, if Dr. Shocker prescribes sticking a patient’s head into a microwave to melt the icicle from his nose, Cora insists they dip the icicle into a cup of hot water. Sometimes Cora’s “common sense” is questionable. She might dump the hot water onto the patient’s nose or try to melt the icicle out with a Bic lighter; but, when the patient screams, Cora quickly comes up with a better way. As ever, she saves the day.

Think House meets Looney Toons.

4.
My wife, Rachel, plies her trade as an herbalist. She also serves as a leader for La Leche League, as an Attachment Parenting group leader, and as a founder of a secular home-school group that meets weekly. Rachel’s energy knows no bounds. She is brilliant, sympathetic, and generous. I often overhear her on the phone, helping a desperate new mother whose infant won’t latch properly onto the breast, or (also by phone) suggesting that a friend try this or that herbal tincture for a health concern, or (yet again on the telephone) recommending an online educational resource for a homeschooling family new to town.

Think House meets Dr. Quinn meets… meets… meets I-don’t-know-what. TV has not made a show that does justice to my wife’s role in this world.

5.
My wife, my daughter—as they save the world one case at a time, I am boundlessly proud and in love with them both.