Visit to the doctor

Sigh. The kids just recently had their birthdays. So you know what that means? Time to visit the doctor for their check-up. This is one of those things that I truly believe is worse for me that it is for them. All day today I was dreading this. Emmett has historically behaved pretty poorly when at the doctor... from not listening, to not letting the doctor do anything, to not even wanting to be weighed. And just the thought of wrangling him and Molly at the same time is enough to provoke a little anxiety.

Here is where husband helps save the day. Last night at bedtime he told Emmett a story about going to doctor and how he showed Molly how it is not bad at all and how he would get a milkshake afterwards if he was good. So when I finally mentioned today that we had to go to doctor, I was prepared for him to lose it,. But he said, "Oh, just like Daddy said! Ok!" Phew, first obstacle down. I wouldn't have to force him to the car!

Then, taking pity on me, husband agreed to head home from work a little early so he could come the appointment with me. Thank goodness! I had a feeling this was going to need one-to-one defense. Arrive at the office and all is good, kids play nicely with toys in the waiting room.

Then, 45 minutes later we get called back (Don't you think it would be nice if they could call parents of small children if they are running more than 30 minutes behind so you don't have them bouncing off the walls of the waiting room for an hour? Just a thought). Molly was starting to lose a little patience, but not too bad. Emmett got weighed and measured willingly! However, they wanted to do a blood pressure on him. As soon as the cuff started to tighten up, he freaked out. I thought it would pass, but he just got worse. So, we had to pull it off before they got a reading. Took him a little while to settle down from that, but he was ok.

(Oh, and Emmett is about 50th percentile for weight and height, and Molly is slightly below 50th percentile weight, height and head circumference).

Once we got into the exam room, both kids did pretty well. (Molly was getting a little hungry and grumpy, but ok) Emmett actually did amazing and let the doctor check his eyes, ears, everything without any hestitation! Awesome, a big change since last year!  And even Molly really didn't fuss too much when getting checked out. Then the shots. We got some crying as you can imagine, but honestly the both settled down very quickly afterwards. And everyone is doing great both physically and developmentally! Even though the kids did pretty good, I am so glad there was 2 of us there because it really would have been difficult to handle both them when they needed comforting.

So all in all, a fairly good visit. But, still, I am really glad that is done for a while!

Emmett got his strawberry milkshake. And mom got a chocolate one.