But not mine! Caleb knew that he would have to visit the doctor to get a check up and a shot before being able to attend school in August. I'm very straight forward with my kids. I don't try to trick them or keep secrets. Or wait until the last minute and hope that suddenly breaking shocking news to them will ease in the situation. So we had discussed everything that would happen during his physical and that, yes, he would be getting shots. He was very accepting of the news and even told me how he was going to be a brave boy and that he knew it would be"poky" for a minute but that the hurt would go away really soon. Sounds great, right?
These conversations, along with a bribe of a Happy Meal if we made it through, happened many times during the week prior to the actual doctor's appointment. And as great as it sounded, let me tell you what really happened:
We had our initial mini-meltdown as soon as we walked into the doctor office's front door. Caleb had worn a special hat. Our pediatrician is the wife of our Stutsmen (farm stuff supplier) representative and Caleb's new hat just happens to be a Stutsmen hat. And since Caleb has a pretty red and white hat, Sarah feels that she must have a pretty red and white hat, too. So I thought it would be neat for them to wear their new hat to make a connection with the doctor. Problem: I have trained Caleb that he is to take his hat off as soon as we walk into a building. We walk into the door and they both reach for their hats to take off and put on the coat hooks. As soon as I start explaining that they don't have to take them off this time, they both go into manners-mode and start explaining rather aggressively that they DO have to take them off. We compromise: take the hats off and then put them back on when their names are called. Agreed. Mini-meltdown #1 diverted.
We proceed on down the short little hallway to check in. When we do so, I was handed a stack of papers...I was going to have to fill out all the forms that are kept in their records because they had switched formats or something. Whatever, no big deal EXCEPT that my morning coffee had kicked in and I HAD to go to the bathroom IMMEDIATELY. Having been in their bathroom before and seeing the signs that said that all kids four years and older would have to submit a urine sample and knowing that when I went to the bathroom Caleb was going to have to, too, I asked the secretary if he could just pee in his little cup now. Not a problem, except that I HAD to go to the bathroom IMMEDIATELY. Oh my... after what seemed like twenty minutes to my bladder ( in reality it was probably a minutes and a half), they finally arrive with the little cup. Off to the bathroom we go, with Caleb questioning the whole way why we were carrying little drinking cups with us. Thankfully, we made it to the bathroom in time and spent more than just a few minutes in there. Sarah also had to go and since she insists on doing everything on her own, it takes a while. And then Caleb would not pee in the cup until he understood completely WHY he was peeing in a cup and WHERE it was going. I finally got all the answers right to his high standards and he peed, and then didn't take his eye off that cup until I handed it to the nurse...he wanted to be sure it got to its destination safely. Potential opportunity for meltdown #2 diverted!
After all that, I sit in the waiting room to fill out the forms and the kids begin playing with their toys. We are the only ones in the waiting room at this point, which is good...if there were other kids there, my kids would have been clinging to me while I was writing, but being alone they played nicely. The main toy was a big playhouse, with one vacuum. One vacuum. Any mother can see a problem here. One vacuum. Quick, Amanda, think!!! Caleb is very proud of his big boy toys at home (his Daddy's tractors and farm equipment from when he was a little boy), so I explain that the vacuum is really a baby toy and that he plays with big boy toys and TA-DA.... potential opportunity for meltdown #3 diverted!
I'm still filling out papers and the kids devise a game: Caleb goes to the door of the house to request something to drink. Sarah goes to the sink in the kitchen to get the requested drink. Caleb goes away, does whatever it was that he was pretending to do, and then goes to the house to request water to make Mr. Ford's milk. (Mr. Ford is our bottle calf.) Sarah goes back to the sink to get requested water, hands it to Caleb who proceeds to mix up the bottle and feed Mr. Ford while Sarah starts vacuuming again. Then he goes back to the kitchen door to deliver eggs he gathered. And then another little boy comes in and the game is over because both kids are immediately on my lap. But if anyone ever wonders how much of a child's environment plays a part in their learning, this story should show that it plays a huge part. All of the little things I do for Josh during the day are done without any kind of attention being drawn to it, but the kids still pick up on them. It amazed me how accurately they picked up on the roles Josh and I play in our real lives. At least they did everything with a smile!
Very shortly after they began climbing on my lap, the kids were called back for their appointment. And so starts the routine of getting the kids their checkups. I never know how cooperative they are going to be until we actually get called back and I very soon realize that on this particular trip, "cooperative" is not on their list on things to do! They switch on their difficult switch and I just sigh. After getting them undressed, weighed and measured, I broke the hats back out. The hats kind of broke the tension a little bit, so the kids loosened up...for a minute. Anyway, we make it through Caleb's checkup with minimal problem. He wasn't happy about it, but he did it. Then it was Sarah's turn. I won't go into full detail, but I WILL say that potential opportunity for meltdown #4 WAS NOT diverted! The doctor was quick and thorough, thankfully, but I still had to put all my muscles into holding down a very determined Sarah Rose who tried with everything she had to escape and bolt to safety.
Check ups complete. Shot time.
When the doctor left, she told us the nurses would be in soon to give the shots. That's paraphrased. We have a great doctor who was speaking in code about Caleb's shots so he wouldn't freak out. But I have a very smart little guy and he caught right on to what she was saying and, of course, started getting nervous. I plopped Caleb up on the table and we went over everything that was going to happen and I reminded him of the Happy Meal promise. And we both laid hands on his little legs and arm and prayed over them. That seemed to calm him down. Until the nurses came back in the door.
Our nurses are pretty good, too. They had the needles down by their sides and behind their backs so they aren't visible, but c'mon...the kid knew what was going to happen. I was instructed to hold down Caleb's upper body, while another nurse held his legs safely down and two other nurses administered the shots. Caleb needed four shots and the nurses, being practiced as they are, did a good job of getting them done quickly. I was bent over Caleb, talking to him and comforting him as much as could be expected, all the while Caleb is screaming (and I mean SCREAMING!!!) at the top of his lungs, "I am NOT getting shots. I will never get shots for preschool! I am never EVER going to preschool. I am NOT getting shots!" over and over until everything was done. It probably would have been pretty funny if it wasn't so heart breaking for this mama to hear his fearful pleas. Big potential for meltdown #5 definitely NOT diverted.
The nurses finished quickly and left just as fast, leaving me to dress Caleb so we could checkout and get the promised stickers: a sticker for the checkup and one additional sticker for each shot. Sarah just got a checkup, Caleb got a checkup and four shots. Okay, all mothers out there... can you see potential meltdown #6 on its way? Not diverted as Sarah proceeded to whine and complain all the way out the checkout door to the exit. However, the meltdown was short lived because Caleb, even feeling as bad as he felt, realized that he had more stickers and shared with his sister. I have the sweetest kids!
After that, we had to do an errand for Josh at Tractor Supply. If you've ever been to Tractor Supply, you know that immediately upon going in the door, there is a display of little plastic animals of all sorts and a variety of vehicles, from tractors to fire engines and from cars to ambulances. A little kid's dream to stand and admire them. (They don't get to play with them, but that doesn't stop them from wanting to look!) Most of the time, we have enough time that we can spend a few minutes looking at them all. But this particular morning, it was almost lunchtime, so I had to tell the kids that we couldn't look this time. If we were operating under normal conditions, this wouldn't have been a big deal. They would have accepted it and we would have continued on. But we certainly weren't operating under normal circumstances, and potential opportunity for meltdown #7 was not diverted.
But we managed to make it out to the car. Twenty five minutes 'til noon. We went through McDonald's drive thru for the kids' promised Happy Meal (after all, we made it through the doctor's visit...maybe not smoothly, but we DID make it through!) and we grabbed Josh a McDonald's burger for lunch. (I would like to emphasize that this is a very, very VERY rare instance... we do not eat from the drive thru, I cook every single meal we eat, thank you very much!)
The doctor loved Caleb and Sarah's hat. She's a farm wife and raised her kids on the farm, too, so she had a perfectly amusing one-sided conversation with the kids about tractors, discing,cultivating and hay.
Caleb no longer brags about being brave for his shots. He is now lumped in the group of strong and tough men who shiver and tear up at the word "shots".
And he has agreed to go to preschool once again!
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