Last week, we took Elora to her 3 year well child check up (a little late) and Joshua to his 18 month check up (a week early.) As always, a trip to the doctor is very entertaining.
Our adventure started in the waiting area, where the small practice has rid themselves of all the kids toys they used to have. So, our young protagonists took it upon themselves to find their own entertainment. This consisted mainly of running down the two hallways toward the exam rooms, each choosing a different direction simultaneously. What fun!
Once we passed the running around stage, Joshua enticed Elora to come stand with him at the low drinking fountain, where he splashed water all over the floor in a manner quite reminiscent of the way he does in the hallway at church every Sunday. Mom let them continue their splashing, relieved that at least they weren't running in on patients down the hall.
Then it was our turn to go to a room of our own! Elora has always loved going to the doctor, but Joshua still remembers getting shots three months ago, so he was less than excited. They weighed both of them in the hall, Elora on a standing scale, and Joshua on the baby scale that he can sit or lay in. He has feared these since birth; I think it has something to do with the crinkly paper they are covered with. He burst into tears immediately, which crying escalated once he saw the familiar room to which we were led. He wouldn't stop until the nurse left us alone in the room.
The nurse had to return and reweigh Elora; Josh started screaming at the sound of her voice, even though she stayed out of sight in the hall. Poor nurse.
This time we saw yet another new doctor (there was another young lady doctor at the practice that we liked, but she moved away just like our first doctor), this one was a man. He seemed nice enough, and not quite as dense as
the one who mistook a two-and-a-half year old Elora for a nine-month-old.Surprisingly, Joshua calmed down after a minute or so, and seemed to like the male doctor. He even started playing peekaboo behind a curtain that was in the room. Elora was very good for her check-up, and everything seemed to be going fine until the doctor started asking odd questions about her weight. He asked how she was eating, and if she was sick or if we had concerns. Then he asked how much she weighed at home, to which I replied that we don't own a scale so I couldn't say.
Then he confided that their scale showed a significant drop in weight: her two-year-old records had her at 28 pounds, and now she weighed 19. I looked at him incredulously. Did he really think that was accurate? I mean...Joshua weighs 25 pounds, and Elora is soooo much bigger than him. And healthy. After some more questions, and my insistence that their measurements were obviously wrong, the doctor took her out to the scale himself, and found her to be 35 pounds.
Yeah, you think? I recalled when we first moved here, and a nurse weighed Joshua as the same size as when he was born, even though he was two months old. They didn't think anything of it until I made a comment about it. My esteem for the nurses has now gone down as well...but with good cause, don't you agree?
The rest of the exam went without further incident....until the doctor called me later that evening. At well child exams, they ask really corny questions to assess your child's development. Questions like: "Can she jump on one foot? Can he walk backwards?" Well, it seems that this doctor had forgotten to ask me a few of these questions, and he really needed to ask me over the phone so they could have it on record.
He asked about Elora things like, "Can she draw straight lines and circles?" (I had told him she could write some of the letters in her name. Hello.) I just found myself thinking, "Okay, my kids were talking to you, and obviously intelligent; did you really need to call me about this?"
Ah, yet another exciting visit to the doctor.
