Katie’s been suffering fron an illness lately, and it was decided she should be admitted to the local hospital overnight for some IV medications. She’s six (six-and-a-half, as she makes clear), so she was understandably nervous. What’s worse, we recently watched an episode of Joan of Arcadia where a friend of Joan’s enters the hospital and later dies; it d*mned near broke my heart when Katie asked me if she was going to die, too. (She will, of course, but with luck not for another hundred years or so, which is exactly what I told her.) She was a brave soldier through the wrist access (she even watched), and became almost bored with the meds going into her arm. She even got used to the annoying automated blood pressure cuff that checked her pressure every half hour, awake or asleep, and only became mildly annoyed at the dog-and-pony show required to get her from the bed into the toilet (”Too many wires,” she’d say).

So when the time came this morning to be released…she didn’t want to leave. She told me that everyone was so nice to her there, she wanted to at least stay for lunch.

I don’t know whether to credit the staff of York Hospital’s pediatric ward, or the raw pluckiness of the Peanut. So I think I’ll allow them to share the credit.