One Has Fun While the Other Has None

Now that our health insurance has kicked in, the kids both needed to visit the doctor for a well checkup. My son hasn’t had a well visit since he was eighteen months old, so he was definitely past due.

Big boys of three years old get to do lots of fun things at the doctor’s office. He was very anxious to step up on the scale and stand in front of the big ruler. Some of his excitement waned a bit when it was time to have his blood pressure checked. Hesitation flickered across his features when he felt the blood pressure cuff tightening around his arm; he reached to take it off, but responded to directions to sit very still while the machine worked. It seemed to take forever. Nevertheless, he stayed rigid in his chair while the apparatus hissed and clicked.

Next it was the baby’s turn to be weighed and measured. Of course she screamed like a banshee the entire time. But her big brother used to do the same (and now he is so big and not screamy). Then it was down to the skivvies while the three of us waited for the doctor to come in. And waited. And waited. The kids made faces in the funhouse mirror and ran around the corner chair, their cool little bodies seemingly oblivious to the chill in the room. I must have told them two dozen times not to lie on the floor. It’s not quite as clean as one would like considering the nature of the establishment.

At long last the doctor did come. She looked in the direction of the baby, which started the screaming afresh. She asked the usual developmental questions; we discussed ways to propagate weight gain in my teeny tiny little peanut of a girl. Then it was time for my son to have his developmental test.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” the doctor asked my son.

She had his attention and he was excited to show her that he knew the sign for “girl.” Once everyone was sufficiently impressed by his sign language prowess she asked him again.

This time he very clearly stated that he was, indeed, a boy.

“Is your sister a boy or a girl,” was the next question.

“She’s a girl,” was his quick reply.

“How about mommy?”

The doctor was starting to lose his interest. He mumbled something that sounded like, “Mommy is mommy.” According to the doctor, this is a very common reply.

“What about daddy? Is daddy a boy or a girl?”

At this question the little man’s eyes grew wide, and in an awed voiced he asserted, “Daddy is very BIG.”

While that answer was good enough for me the doctor seemed very interested to know whether daddy was a boy or a girl. It finally came out that daddy was definitely a boy, and my son passed his developmental inquiry. He then went on to spell his name (and his sister’s name) for the doctor, and wow her with things that she didn’t even ask for.

As if that wasn’t enough to make me proud, my young man braved his flu shot like a trooper. He flinched and said, “it hurts me” when the needle was stuck into his arm, but he didn’t cry. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of his poor little sister who had to be peeled and cut away from my body to be laid on the table.

It was very sad. It became even sadder at three o’clock this morning when she awoke from her slumber with a raging fever, compliments of the savage flue shot. I think it can be very hard to be one and a half.