Monthly Archives: June 2008

One of Rapid City’s attractions, for both residents and tourists, is Storybook Island. Which isn’t an island, really, but a park/playground for children. They can play in, on, and around structures like Peter’s Pumpkin, the Crooked Little Man’s house, Winnie the Pooh’s house, and Cinderella’s coach. They can pretend to drive a real locomotive and a real fire truck. They can ride on a real miniature train.

And they can go to the theatre. Live theatre, where they are encouraged to participate on cue, cheering on the heroes and reprimanding the villains—who by the end of the show usually turn out to be not so very bad, really. This is theatre for three- and four-year-olds, after all, who ought not to be scared right out of their little plastic sandals. And who, preferably, ought to learn at a little something about counting or working together or the value of saying “please.”

To illustrate: in this year’s version of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” Jack doesn’t steal the gold and the golden egg-laying hen and the magic harp. No, the giant’s wife gives him those things, because she’s tired of all those surplus golden eggs cluttering up the place. Besides, she wants her husband to retire from gianting.

Age-appropriate revisions and all, the shows are great fun. The plays are enjoyable enough, certainly. But the real entertainment comes from watching the little kids watch the plays.

Today, for example, during “Sleeping Beauty,” the kids in the audience were asked to remind the prince that he dared not eat or drink anything on his way to the enchanted castle. The fairy godmother told the children, “Say ‘don’t drink it’ three times.”

Following her lead, they shouted, “Don’t drink it! Don’t drink it! Don’t drink it!”

Except for one literal-minded little guy behind me, who dutifully shouted, “Don’t drink it three times!”

Then there was the little boy sitting in front of me, who accepted the actors’ invitation to come up on stage and dance at the end of the play. He came back to his preschool group and asked, “Was I great?” Another little boy told him in awe, “I saw you. You were right next to the King!”

When you’re three, the King up on stage in his crown and his velvet cape isn’t an eighteen-year-old kid whose crown is way too big and whose tennis shoes show underneath his cape. No, he’s The King. When you’re three, children’s theatre is still magic.

For those of us who are much older than three, it’s magic, too. True, we notice that the King wears tennis shoes and the fairy’s wig keeps slipping and this week’s Sleeping Beauty looks suspiciously like last week’s Jack in the Beanstalk. But we notice the magic, as well. For us, the magic comes from watching all those delighted little kids who still believe in make-believe.

There’s nothing like spending a few hours in a hospital emergency room for putting things into the proper perspective.

My daughter woke up early the other Sunday morning with severe abdominal pain. It matched all the descriptions she found on the Internet of appendicitis, and it kept getting worse. That’s how we ended up spending much of Sunday afternoon and evening in the emergency room.

Given a choice, Sunday afternoon at 3:30 is probably a better time for an ER visit than, say, 11:30 on Saturday night. Even so, as we started across the sidewalk to the door, my daughter said, “Look out, Mom, don’t step there—that’s blood.”

Once we had checked in at the desk, we discovered the probable source of the blood. A gangly teenage boy holding a red-spattered towel to his forehead was describing to the admissions clerk how his skateboard had flipped out from under him.

Then two young women, obviously sisters, came in with a little boy of about three. The mother and aunt were upset; the little boy looked fearful and had obviously been crying. We heard his mother tell the nurse, “He stuck a rock up his nose, and we can’t get it out.”

Of course it wasn’t funny. Not really. Besides, laughing at traumatized toddlers is something one simply doesn’t do. But I couldn’t help murmuring to my daughter, “See? Things could always be worse; at least you don't have a rock up your nose,” and she started to giggle but had to stop because it made her belly hurt.

Just as everyone ahead of us had been taken inside and my daughter’s turn was coming up, in through the front door came an elderly man in a cowboy hat, supported by his wife and a younger woman who was probably their daughter. My daughter told me, “I won’t be going next after all; that looks like a heart attack.”

And indeed, at the magic words, “chest pain,” the need for preliminary paperwork instantly vanished, and he was in a wheelchair and through the double doors. We didn’t mind waiting a bit longer, either. We’re still grateful that my father—another elderly man in a cowboy hat—received the same kind of life-saving attention for his heart attack a few years ago.

Then it was my daughter’s turn, and we spent the next three hours in a chilly examining room where she was poked, was prodded, had blood drawn and an IV started, did not throw up, and ultimately found out that her temperature and white blood count were both normal.

Along the way, we also learned what to do for a small child with small objects in his nose—cover the unoccupied nostril and blow into the other one to make him sneeze. The nurse who told us this had personal as well as professional experience. “Oh, yeah,” she said, “My son did that all the time. Rocks, bead, sunflower seeds—you name it, it went up his nose.”

Eventually, the doctor told us the test results were inconclusive. This didn’t mean she did not have appendicitis. But even if it was her appendix, it wasn’t going to do anything dramatic like burst in the next couple of days. Surgery was not immediately called for. He recommended going home and waiting. If she got worse, she should come back.

That was reassuring—sort of. Until, as we were leaving, the doctor passed us in the hall and said cheerfully, “See you in 24 hours.”

She got worse. She went back. Twenty-four hours later, she had traded her appendix for three little incisions. They’re the most expensive body piercings she has ever had.