"Ahzaba yada Ducky," He slurred unintelligibly, as he gazed happily at me from la-la land with the sloppy grin of a falling down drunk.

There was no question about it. My three-year-old son was the new poster child for what it means to be feeling no pain.

But wait, it’s not what you think! As it happens, Noah was in the hospital’s outpatient surgery wing, being prepped to have his tonsils removed. The pre-surgical cocktail was really a sedative intended to keep him calm and ooze him into drowsiness in advance of the real anesthesia. It worked; he was certainly a happy little man.

He was also more than a little woozy. My comedian son decided AFTER the Versed had been administered that a trip to the potty was in order. The boy could not have stood on his own two feet to save his life, so I dutifully carried him down the hall to the nearest bathroom, trying as best I could to protect his modesty in the skimpy hospital gown. Then I had to hold him upright to do the job. Otherwise he would have plunged face first into the toilet, and somehow I don’t think he would have cared one bit!

But have YOU ever tried to hold up a floppy (and heavy) three-year-old at the potty while at the same time trying to direct his aim and simultaneously keep him from dropping Ducky in? Because there was no parting Noah from Ducky. Yet due to the cocktail, he wasn’t exactly holding on to him with a death grip. Ducky was in real danger, I tell you. Barney (clad by attentive nurses in a hospital gown and wristband of his own) too, for that matter.

Somehow, we managed. Nothing got sprinkled that wasn’t supposed to, and thanks to a Hurculean effort on my part, neither Ducky nor Barney touched any icky public bathroom surfaces. 

It was also at this point when I realized why the hospital gown seemed so cruelly skimpy. I had missed one of the ties in the back. I decided to fix the problem immediately, before parading Noah back down the hall. But because he was loopy and droopy and not at all in a condition conducive to staying upright without assistance, ingenuity was required. I started out by squatting down on the floor and balancing him precariously on my knee to find the other half of the tie. Not good enough. Lacking magical abilities (super powers notwithstanding), there was no way only two hands could keep Noah, Ducky, and Barney off the floor AND tie the gown. I don’t know about you, but I have not yet mastered the fine art of fastening barely there hospital gowns with just one free hand. So I shifted over until I could prop Noah’s shoulder against the wall, with one leg unsteadily extended to catch him if he fell forward. It took a few tries but we did get the gown properly adjusted, barely.

After all that effort, I’m not sure it helped. Did I mention that hospital gowns are just evil? But anyone who is familiar with my clumsy ways (and if you aren’t, you can read about some of my hall of shame tumbles here and here) can now marvel at the fact that I didn’t topple over and mortally injure us both.

On finally returning to the pre-surgical staging area, all dry and in one piece, we discovered that even in his drunken state, Noah still has a pitcher’s arm. Just as we were sitting down, Ducky went airborne. He who could barely even hold on to Ducky two minutes earlier had, without warning, hurled him across the room. All the while with that same goofy, tipsy grin. Noah looked at that moment like he was living the Barney theme song, in an inebriated sort of way:

"I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family…" 

It seemed inappropriate to laugh, considering that the little guy was about to be put under for surgery, but really, how could you not laugh at such a sight? 

They kicked us out of the hospital practically as soon as Noah woke up, and he has been resting comfortably at home all day, sleeping off whatever drugs they gave him to knock him out. A very different experience from when Maia went through the same a few years ago. I’ll never forget her singing Hakuna Matata in the car on the way home. From having her TONSILS out. Her throat was supposed to hurt! She never did go back to sleep that day. Instead, she threw a tantrum because she wanted to play baseball outside with Daddy and we wouldn’t let her, being still under the effects of anesthesia and all.

So Noah is doing as well as can be expected, living on chocolate milk. Poor guy, though… the anesthesia and the surgical morphine have pretty much worn off now, and we can tell his throat is really starting to hurt. He’s a trooper, but he didn’t want to eat anything for dinner. Not even ice cream or chocolate pudding or popsicles. He just sat there, not complaining, but with a quivering lip and a single tear rolling down his cheek.

Maybe laughing wasn’t so appropriate after all.