The next time that I think I can take both girls to the doctor for a check-up by myself, take
me to the doctor. Or the mental hospital.
Or at least call ahead there, because I'll be self-admitting by the time the visit is over.
My first mistake was not scheduling it waaaay in advance like apparently everyone else who visits our practice. Apparently, a month and a half is not enough notice to get the "good" appointment times. So I ended up with 12:45. I'm guessing every mommy is nodding their head in complete understanding as they read this, but just in case you don't know why 12:45 is the poopiest time to go to the doctor, there is ONE reason: NAPTIME. At 12:45 every child in the Eastern Time zone was settling in for their afternoon nap- every child except for those who were enduring the doctor's visit from H-E-double hockeysticks.
My second mistake was running late. I put Little Sister down for an early nap at 11, and set Big Sister up with a movie on my bed so that she could rest and have some downtime. Both girls had gotten up fairly early, so it wasn't completely crazy to give them an early rest time. I even let Big Sis eat a plate of nachos and apples
in my bed while she watched Little Mermaid.
(side note: I pulled up the comforter very tightly so as to prevent little tiny shards of tortilla chips from making it between my sheets. When I came in a few minutes later, she was snuggly settled under my blankets, and so was half of her lunch. Sigh.)When I finally woke Little Sis and loaded the girls up, I realized I should have started about five minutes earlier. But since we still waited in the waiting room for a while, I don't think the lateness had much to do with what was to come...
My third mistake was not realizing how many shots were in store for Big Sister. Little Sis is still at the stage where she gets poked almost every time she goes into the doctor. But Big Sis hasn't had shots in quite some time. Like, in enough time for her to have forgotten that she has
ever had them. And when I realized what was in store, I didn't
really realize just what was in store. After the doctor told me what we needed, I turned to my big girl and said, "yeah, you're going to have to have a few shots to keep you healthy."
Or maybe I said, "Yeah, in a few minutes, we're all going to leave, and a giant monster is going to come in here, turn off all the lights, kidnap you, and eat all of your toys." At least, that's how she reacted. Complete horror. As if all of her worst nightmares had come true.
It's no secret to anyone who has met my daughter (or read this blog for very long) that she is complete drama queen. But the magnitude of the drama at the doctor's office was surprising even to me. She cried. She screamed. She sobbed. She tried to run for the door. She asked me to drive her home. Repeatedly. Sometimes she just repeated the mantra "home, sweet, home" over and over. One time, she seriously looked up at me with tear-filled eyes and said, "I think I'll just have to drive myself home." By that time, I was almost ready to hand her the keys.
She said that in the bathroom. Where I was supposed to be catching a urine sample. From my four year old. While accompanied by my 16-month-old. And I was going to write her name on it and stick it in the little door over the sink, and then we'd wash our hands while singing our special handwashing song, and then skip past the rainbows and unicorns into the room where she would get her blood test...
HA! Here is what really happened... we walked into the bathroom, and Little Sister walked straight to the toilet saying "Bobby (potty) Bobby bobby" and proceeded to put her hands all the way in. She grabbed
under the rim. You know, the part for which they had to redesign toilet cleaner bottles, just to try to get some of the intense nastiness of that out of reach part- yeah, she definitely just curled her fat little fingers right under there...
I grabbed her up and washed her hands and tried to stay patient. I even sang the handwashing song. Until I heard something else- a familiar "tinkle" noise. And I looked over to find Big Sister sitting on the toilet. And my hopes at actually obtaining that urine sample were about to be flushed away.
It was a very
Froggy moment. I fussed at her, making her name much loooonger than it usually sounds.
"Whaaat?" She asked, but then immediately realized that she hadn't saved anything to catch in the empty cup I still held in my hand. "I'm sorry. I couldn't wait." She said. "You can just scoop it out of the toilet." She reassured. I started to explain to her why that wouldn't work, until Little Sis got her hand
really close to helping me scoop some out whether it worked or not. I picked her up, scolded her & sat her down (again) on the other side of the bathroom, turned to finish with Big Sister, and stopped. I breathed. I said a little prayer and reminded myself that I love these children. And then we all washed hands, flushed, and get the HECK out of that crazy room.
But then we headed into the lab, and the tech and I had to physically restrain my four-year-old in order to stick her finger. I had to hold her opposite hand because she was grabbing & swiping at the tech to try to stop the process. Little Sister just stood there, watching, wondering what in the world was the matter with her "siss-see" and when she could go back to play in the water.
From the lab, we went back to the exam room. By this point, I was over it. Big Sister was still talking about driving home, repeating "home sweet home," screaming, everything. If she had ever seen the Wizard of Oz, she would have clicked her heels until her shoes were scuffed. The exam room was stark and empty, and the crying reverberated off of the walls at an ear-splitting volume. I finally told her that she was hurting our ears, and Little Sister & I stepped out of the room.
The drug rep in the hallway looked at me like I was nuts. The nurse seemed to understand, but still watched curiously. I explained, "We have a lot of drama at our house. I've found that if you remove the audience, the drama sort of dies down." I left the door cracked and watched to see if she would calm down. It took a little bit, but she finally caught her breath and we went in and read a book until they came in
with the shots.
Little Sister went first, because she usually gets over them very quickly, and I wanted to show Big Sister how simple it really was. But since Big Sis was once again screaming like a madwoman, Little Sis didn't calm down quite so quickly. And I was finding it hard to hold & comfort her while getting her supposedly older sibling to stop-running-around-don't-open-that-door-just-come-over-here-and-it-will-all-be-over-soon. The nurse & I had to hold Big Sister down. She looked like she could have been in some terrible made for tv movie about a horrible mental health facility. I'm pretty sure I told her she was being ridiculous. I also know that at some point I just thought about the madness of it all and had to laugh.
Just about that time, the last shot was finished. And I looked down to see Big Sister laughing too. Out of relief, I'm sure. But I think she also realized that it wasn't NEARLY as bad as she had (over) anticipated.
They handed her a caramel apple sucker. Little Sister wanted one, but they didn't give her anything. I scrounged around and found some goldfish to avoid the fighting. I'm not sure why they didn't at least give her a sticker- she was actually the brave one! And me... I felt bad for my babies and their big band-aids, but I also felt exhausted. Where was my sucker?! When we finally drove off, I stopped and got myself a Route 44 Cherry Lime-Aid.
So there was ONE upside to the appointment- we were finished in time for happy hour at Sonic.
Okay,
there were more than just one upside. My children checked out to be perfectly healthy, and they slept really well last night.
And next time, it's Daddy's turn.
muwah-hahaha.
