A couple weeks ago I got an email from the mother of one of David's Sunday School classmates, a woman I don't know. By "don't know" I mean I've chatted with her at a random meet and greet and high fived her daughter's hand at the Purim festival. I didn't remember her name or anything about her.

Turns out I'm one of the few people she did know at Sunday School. Her daughter was about to go into the hospital for four days of brain tests, and she was in desperate need of support. Specifically, she needed people to come play with her daughter and keep the kid from being bored out of her mind.

Ok, I can find an hour to donate. I figured David would be nervous and resistant, but we would do our duty, dang it. The coordinator asked to sign up for two days. Obviously, they were low on support. We went two days, and we had a blast.

The hardest part for me was picking David up from school and getting back out of the house in 45 minutes. No wait, the hardest part was giving up my nap time. I did not get lost getting to Children's Hospital. David really dug reading the map and navigating our way to S's room. Every hospital should be like Children's. It's full of bright colors and pretty pictures, and we went from the whale area to the train section.

David had trouble actually getting himself into S's room. He's shy. But luckily we had brought our lion, Geoffrey, with us who is very brave, and Geoffrey led the way. David was also lured in by the chance to play with the tv monitor that had to stay tracked on S.

In addition to epilepsy, S has an underdeveloped right brain lobe. She's very cheerful and loving, spoke 3 words while we there, and seems about two mentally to me. Pulling my glasses off my face brought back memories. David was great with her. He was patient and engaged and did not give her grief for not being able to put a puzzle together. They both loved sitting in my lap and being read to.

I had a great time chatting with the mom and basking in S's attention. It's certainly possible to step up and do mitzvahs (good deeds) because it's the right thing to do, but it's a whole lot better when it's fun.