Officially normal

We woke up last Tuesday preparing the boys to appear at the doctor’s office for their yearly wellness visit. It was time for someone with some real training and skill to certify our boys as normal.

With one boy feeling less than stellar, I began to think it might be my lucky day. Really, how often do you already have an appointment for the doctor and subsequently get sick? However, I was a little unsure about how in the world I was going to get a boy who is typically car sick off the toilet long enough to drive 30 minutes to the doctor. I mean, one bucket, I can do. But two?

As I visited with him, I wasn’t altogether sure how much of him felt sick and how much of him was just plain worried. “Is it a long drive?” Cooper asked. “Thirty minutes,” I said. “Are you worried about getting sick in the car?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied. “Are you worried about having to get shots?” “Yes,” he said as his bottom lip started to quiver.

You see, it was only a few weeks ago when these kids endured their first lucid experience with childhood vaccinations, and the memory is still quite vivid. However, today was not about getting shots.

“Don’t worry, Coop. No shots today, I promise. Just take your pill for getting sick in the car, and drink your medicine for having to go poop…oh, and here’s a Tums to settle your tummy…” No wonder the kid was tied up in knots.

After our fourth trip that morning to visit Mr. Tidy Bowl and my insistence that the boy take all the “required medicine”, we finally made an attempt to get on the road. As luck would have it, we drove the 31.24 miles to the clinic without the need for any buckets, and by the time we strolled into the office, we were about as healthy as two little boys could be. Go figure.

We sat and waited as patiently as we could wait for a nervous five year old, an ornery four year old and a frazzled mother with eight pages of medical history forms to complete. My favorite: Question 47: “Do you smoke?” Answer: “I’m four years old. Refer to question 2: Age. Or question 3: Date of Birth.” (Come on folks. Can’t we streamline these forms a little for the kiddos?)

After almost an hour in the waiting room, one trip to the restroom, and taking my life in my own hands by agreeing to read them half a dozen kids’ books from what could probably be considered the Holiday Inn for germs and disease (the children’s play area), the nurse finally called our names.

As we stood in the hallway outside the examining room, I thought to myself how amazing it is that such simple things can make really smart kids look like morons. Take measuring their height, for instance. Telling my kids to “stand on the ruler” was somehow a little mind boggling. Of course the ruler was vertical, from floor to near ceiling, and I suppose they were wondering how in the world they were going to “stand on” that.

Sticking out their tongues and saying “Aaahh”: another tricky request. For some reason, my little Einsteins could not put those two tasks together at the same time. But the most difficult task of the appointment came when the doctor asked Cooper to take a deep breath so she could listen to him breathe. I’m not really sure which part of her request was confusing to him, but his interpretation must have been something like, “Open your mouth really wide and make a hacking sound from the back of your throat like you are coughing up a bone.” Yeah, I’d say there was a small breakdown in communication.

After about four or five failed attempts, the doctor, who was trying really hard to hold back her amusement, finally gave up and moved on to the next developmental milestone on her list. I stopped sweating it when I realized there would be no IQ test today.

I spent the next four and a half minutes trying to have adult-like chat with a doctor I’d just met. A question about puss pockets, an inquiry into the normalcy of a boy’s bowel movements, and the burning question of the day…what do you do about carsickness?

Unfortunately, the doc had no remedy, although she was able to feel my pain, as she too has issues with motion sickness in her own child. And just as we were attempting to bond with one another, trading poor, pitiful me and puke stories, child number two falls to the floor after a 30 second spinning frenzy while his brother climbs into the window sill, half pulling down the shade in the process. I’m guessing the doc’s thinking, “Lady, you’ve got a lot bigger problems to worry over than kids puking in your car!”

So we cut our doctor-parent consult short before the boys stabbed each other with the tongue depressors or stuffed cotton balls up their nostrils, and I attempted to grab each boy by the nape of the neck and drag them back to a place where their delinquency could not be observed by others: strapped in and buckled down on the inside of my car.

As I drove in silence toward the unavoidable black hole some call Wal Mart, I could not believe the way my kids had misbehaved. Like morons, I said. And it was only moments later, as my brow had become permanently furrowed, my teeth were almost completely ground away and I’d made my third disapproving remark to my morons, I realized…I’d forgotten to pay.

I wheeled my car back in the direction of the clinic, and made my apologies to the receptionist, who actually didn’t seem totally shocked about my mistake. I suppose I’m not the first person to attempt a “drive off” at the doctor’s office. (And after I made my co-pay, I understood why.)

I settled back behind the wheel and forced myself to pause. So maybe our day didn’t go quite as I’d planned. Maybe we’re just not talented when it comes to deep breathing. Maybe we’ll never get an A+ in tongue depressing. It’s true, the overall experience may not have been ideal, but at least I was assured that I had two happy, healthy, as close-to-normal-as-you-can-be little boys. If I wasn’t convinced about that before, I now officially had a licensed doctor’s stamp of approval to prove it. And sometimes, as any mother can tell you, being “normal” is just about the best news you can get!

And that’s All in a day’s work!