Phew! We did it! We made it to all our appointments! Though the doctor did mention that in spite of Alexander starting to walk again she'd still like us to take him in for an x-ray since he's still limping. I just...honestly...they're so expensive and I'm kind of flying solo this week and I don't know if I can wrestle him down onto the x-ray table again.
Alexander isn't a fan of the doctor.
Or the dentist.
Or the bug guy.
Or his nursery leaders.
Or anyone, really.
When the bug guy came to spray last week, Alexander clung to me the whole time, whispering, "Scare me. Scare me. Scare me."
Today when he found himself at the doctor's office—yet again—he immediately grew nervous. I reassured him several times that it wasn't his turn. We were here for Benjamin and Rachel. He'd paid his dues.
He sat on my lap feeling anxious.
Finally they called us back and we went to the weighing/measurement station and everything was fine until the nurse explained to Benjamin that, "We're just going to do the very same things we did with baby brother..."
Alexander lost it.
"Noooo!" he screamed, wrapping his arms tightly around my neck. "Nooo! Not my turn! Not my turn! NOOOT! MYYYY! TUUUUURN!"
Everyone was reassuring him that it wasn't his turn—it was Benjamin's turn!—and that he had nothing to worry about, but it took Alexander several minutes to calm down. And just down the hall some other child was having a similar freak out about a shot, I presume, screaming, "I'm scared! I'm scared! I'm scared! Don't touch me! I'm scared!" (reminding me of Rachel's glory days).
It was a noisy day at the pediatrician's office.
There was another little girl waiting to be measured and she started looking mighty nervous with all this unrest echoing through the halls. "You're not exactly selling this," her mom joked to me.
Rachel and Benjamin bravely (in Alexander's opinion) got measured and then we went to wait in our room (according to Alexander, being measured is torture but getting shots is just fine (kids make no sense)).
Both Rachel and Benjamin are tall and thin—"which I'll assume is normal for your children at this point," the doctor said. Rachel is to the age where she gets a private room for her appointment with the doctor, so I'll leave her weight private, too, I guess. But she's quickly gaining on me in the height department—she's 5 ft 2.5 inches!
The doctor was a little worried when she looked at Benjamin's chart because the nurse had written down 41.38 inches when what she really meant was 4 ft. 1.38 inches. It's not a huge difference but it's enough to have moved him from the less-than-1-percentile to the 60th percentile for height (which the doctor seemed much happier about—and, I mean, he worked hard to get on the charts at all so we wouldn't want to boot him off again). He's 48.8 lbs (so I don't know why the doctor is going on about him being lean when he weighs as much as I did in middle school; he's always seemed like a rather dense kid to me, like it's surprising to me how heavy he is when I pick him up).
They're both healthy and they both did surprisingly well with their shots. The nurse called Rachel up first. "I always take the older sibling* first so they can show their younger siblings that getting shots isn't so bad."
"Yeah...Rachel might not be the best candidate for that job..." I said.
But she held my hand and counted to ten and let out a nice, big breath, and "Oh!" she said in surprise. It really wasn't so bad. Perhaps she's finally learned to be okay with shots!
Benjamin tried to hide behind the examination table, but we manage to coax him out and he did just fine as well.
I'm glad that's over with for a year!
(I suppose I should mention that Miriam was being a very helpful helper throughout the appointment, holding and reading to either Zoë or Alexander as was necessary. I should probably also mention that Zoë was being such a stinker that when we got to the doctor's office and Rachel reached back to unbuckle her Zoë did her buckle back up instead of climbing out of the car because she "wanted Mom to do it!" Gah! This child drives me crazy...but she's also cute...so it evens out).
*On a completely unrelated note, Zoë uses the word sibling a lot (like more than a four-year-old ordinarily would, I think) and she always says it sib-il-ling. I took the kids to story time at the library this evening (because that's when they do it, apparently) and she chirped to the librarian that she'd like some extra stickers (or something) to share with her "sib-il-lings," who were too cool for story time and were hanging out in the back of the room.
"Can I have some to share with my sib-il-lings?"
May she forever believe that's a three-syllable word.
Alexander isn't a fan of the doctor.
Or the dentist.
Or the bug guy.
Or his nursery leaders.
Or anyone, really.
When the bug guy came to spray last week, Alexander clung to me the whole time, whispering, "Scare me. Scare me. Scare me."
Today when he found himself at the doctor's office—yet again—he immediately grew nervous. I reassured him several times that it wasn't his turn. We were here for Benjamin and Rachel. He'd paid his dues.
He sat on my lap feeling anxious.
Finally they called us back and we went to the weighing/measurement station and everything was fine until the nurse explained to Benjamin that, "We're just going to do the very same things we did with baby brother..."
Alexander lost it.
"Noooo!" he screamed, wrapping his arms tightly around my neck. "Nooo! Not my turn! Not my turn! NOOOT! MYYYY! TUUUUURN!"
Everyone was reassuring him that it wasn't his turn—it was Benjamin's turn!—and that he had nothing to worry about, but it took Alexander several minutes to calm down. And just down the hall some other child was having a similar freak out about a shot, I presume, screaming, "I'm scared! I'm scared! I'm scared! Don't touch me! I'm scared!" (reminding me of Rachel's glory days).
It was a noisy day at the pediatrician's office.
There was another little girl waiting to be measured and she started looking mighty nervous with all this unrest echoing through the halls. "You're not exactly selling this," her mom joked to me.
Rachel and Benjamin bravely (in Alexander's opinion) got measured and then we went to wait in our room (according to Alexander, being measured is torture but getting shots is just fine (kids make no sense)).
Both Rachel and Benjamin are tall and thin—"which I'll assume is normal for your children at this point," the doctor said. Rachel is to the age where she gets a private room for her appointment with the doctor, so I'll leave her weight private, too, I guess. But she's quickly gaining on me in the height department—she's 5 ft 2.5 inches!
The doctor was a little worried when she looked at Benjamin's chart because the nurse had written down 41.38 inches when what she really meant was 4 ft. 1.38 inches. It's not a huge difference but it's enough to have moved him from the less-than-1-percentile to the 60th percentile for height (which the doctor seemed much happier about—and, I mean, he worked hard to get on the charts at all so we wouldn't want to boot him off again). He's 48.8 lbs (so I don't know why the doctor is going on about him being lean when he weighs as much as I did in middle school; he's always seemed like a rather dense kid to me, like it's surprising to me how heavy he is when I pick him up).
They're both healthy and they both did surprisingly well with their shots. The nurse called Rachel up first. "I always take the older sibling* first so they can show their younger siblings that getting shots isn't so bad."
"Yeah...Rachel might not be the best candidate for that job..." I said.
But she held my hand and counted to ten and let out a nice, big breath, and "Oh!" she said in surprise. It really wasn't so bad. Perhaps she's finally learned to be okay with shots!
Benjamin tried to hide behind the examination table, but we manage to coax him out and he did just fine as well.
I'm glad that's over with for a year!
(I suppose I should mention that Miriam was being a very helpful helper throughout the appointment, holding and reading to either Zoë or Alexander as was necessary. I should probably also mention that Zoë was being such a stinker that when we got to the doctor's office and Rachel reached back to unbuckle her Zoë did her buckle back up instead of climbing out of the car because she "wanted Mom to do it!" Gah! This child drives me crazy...but she's also cute...so it evens out).
*****
*On a completely unrelated note, Zoë uses the word sibling a lot (like more than a four-year-old ordinarily would, I think) and she always says it sib-il-ling. I took the kids to story time at the library this evening (because that's when they do it, apparently) and she chirped to the librarian that she'd like some extra stickers (or something) to share with her "sib-il-lings," who were too cool for story time and were hanging out in the back of the room.
"Can I have some to share with my sib-il-lings?"
May she forever believe that's a three-syllable word.
Wow, none of my kids have yet to be singled out by the doctor for appointments without mom which is why I was there for the moment our doctor asked E if we'd talked to him about doing the nasty yet and also why that doctor is no longer our doctor 🤦♀️ I love that they are getting braver about the shots. Sam was so stressed last time we were there watching E get his shots.
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