Taking your 18 month old to the doctor for a well visit is not supposed to be a workout, right? Well , it is when the 18 month old is my very independent, opinionated, active, wild, yet sweet and adoreable baby girl.
Let me paint the picture for you...
We enter the doctor's office, and the first thing that baby girl does is try to take a toy away from a little boy that was already playing with it. I stood anxiously waiting to see if she would get violent with the little boy, but luckily my sweet girl rushed in for the rescue encouraging her sister to come and play with her. Then her nose starts running, and I get the evil eye from a mommy sitting in the well side. So, we decide to go and sit on the sick side to prevent any germs from spreading (the sick side is separated from the well side by a big wall of air, you know?)
After 20 minutes of waiting, they call us back, only baby girl is not finished playing and puts up a big fight! I try to reason with her(what was I thinking), and then I resort to picking her up like a football and carrying her back to the office where a very pregnant doctor is waiting for us. She remembers my baby girl and how "how full of personality"she is (a.k.a. strong willed and out of control). Then much to my excitement, baby girl leaves a present in her diapers for me, and she refuses to have her diaper changed like most normal children do. After wrestling her down, keeping her still, grabbing her leg, and wiping her butt, while remaining a calm, good mommy in front of the doctor, I finally get a new diaper on the child. I am now sweating and out of breath. The doctor observe baby girl climbing on chairs, running, and trying to climb onto the table and comments on her wonderful gross motor skills. I ask her about the high level of activity compared to other children her age, and she says that the 18 month appt. is always a hard one. I think she was just being nice because my baby girl was all over the place and refusing to cooperate when it came time to listen to her breathing, checking her ears, tummy, ect.
Then my sweet girl stepped right in to save the day...
She whispers to the doctor,"Why don't you try those things on me first, then she'll want to do it too." Is she smart or what? She gets the art of manipulation, and boy was it successful! Baby girl was eagerly awaiting her turn, and cooperating like a champion! Until it came time to be weighed. There was no way that she was even going to think about sitting on that scale, no matter how hard we tried to make it look appetizing!
So the doctor came up with the great idea of letting me hold her while they weighed both of us, then just weighing me and subtracting to find her weight. Great! Now the doctor, 2 nurses, and anyone who reads baby girl's chart will know that her mommy still has a few pounds too many to loose!
We found out how much she weighed, and headed back to get dressed, only she was not in the mood to get dressed, so more screaming, squirming, and hitting proceeded to take place. Finally, we are dressed, and getting ready to head out the door, and sweet girl accidentally shuts baby girl's fingers in the door. So, we walked out of that doctor's office screaming and sweating. I thought I heard as we ran out of sight, thank god they are gone, may they be well for a very long time!
