We left without tears...

The last two weeks have been going fairly well. As you can tell from the earlier post, her incision is healing nicely. It is past the "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT BABY!!!" phase and into the "Oh, that poor baby fell and hit her head" phase. Today was her check-up with Dr. Sargent to check out the healing progress. I was pretty confident that he would be pleased, so I was truly at ease all day. We were running a little late so Mia and I got dropped off at the elevators while Maddie and Drew parked the car. We got on the elevator with a nice gentleman who began oohing and aahing over Mia. When I looked down at her expecting to see her normal grinning face I noticed her bottom lip quivering and her eyes beginning to water. I tried comforting her, but she remained very solemn. We got off the elevator and walked into the Medical Mall entrance. The sliding glass doors opened automatically and she jumped and grabbed tightly onto my shirt. As we continued to walk, her grip became tighter and tighter. Suddenly it hit me... she remembered. She had such a strong connection with this place and the pain she has gone through that she was already beginning to dread just being there. My heart was so saddened and empathetic for her.
Thankfully, once we arrived at Dr. Sargent's office, there were 4 little girls playing with toys. After closely watching them, she decided to jump down and join in. By the time Drew and Maddie arrived, she was laughing and playing with her new friends.
A quick hour and 45 minutes later, we were finally called back. I don't know if I could have stayed one more minute in that waiting room, so hearing her name was like music to our ears. Once we got into a room, Dr. Sargent (and his entourage) arrived very shortly. He took a quick look at her head and confirmed that it was healing well. He even said that I was "doing a great job keeping it clean and allowing it to heal." Then after an impressive 45 second consult, he was out the door and asking us to return in 4 weeks. Suddenly we heard Maddie exclaim, "WHAT! That's all?!?" We heard the entourage in the hall laughing at that remark and the nurse practitioner peak her head back in the door and let us know that gave her a good chuckle.
So, even though we wanted to hear "see you in 6 months", we will take "it looks great, see you in a month."
As we were getting on the elevator, we were all laughing and joking and Drew looked at me and smiled. "Hey... this is the first time we are leaving this place without mommy in tears." I paused and reflected on that wonderful thought.