To start the blog off on a much more somber tone, please
keep A.J.’s grandma in your prayers. His
aunt called and they are rushing Grandma to the hospital and think she may have
a pulmonary embolism.
This caps off my very exhausting day. Now to reflect and find the humor in it…Bart
has had a neverending cough pretty much since after Thanksgiving. Could easily attribute this to the germ
hoarders who are constantly petting him, breathing on him, kissing him,
especially Sawyer who seems to think kissing the baby requires leaving a puddle
of saliva on his scalp. Back to the
pediatrician’s we go for our now “weekly” visit. Running late, no surprise there. Surely I look like a hot mess running down
the hall of the office building where the peds office is located, pushing the
snap-n-go stroller with Bart; Sawyer and
Jimmy running ahead leading the way. I
pray they will stop and go into the correct office. Arrive, check in and head to the “sick room”
which is thankfully empty. The torture
begins. These office visits where I make
the mistake of bringing more than one child make me feel like I am either going
to a.) have an anxiety attack b.) freak out and start restraining my children
with the hose from the blood pressure cuff in the exam room or c.) run screaming
from the office and tell the staff they can just keep the kids, I’ll be at the
nearest bar. Both of the waiting rooms
have nice long benches built coming out of the wall that run the full length of
the room and are carpeted. And
immediately the circus act begins. My
two clowns(Sawyer and Jimmy) start running back and forth along the one
bench. And they seem to think the louder
the better. I am saved for the moment
and a nurse comes to take us back to the exam room. Ah we are in the purple room, the walls are a
nice pale lavender and the chairs and exam table are nice purple vinyl. Aren’t purple walls supposed to be calming? Or do they make people crazy? Based on today’s findings with our two
subjects, I’d say it is the latter. The
first nurse gets the scoop on why we are back and then we have to head down the
hall to weigh Bart. Sawyer trots off
first but doesn’t stop at the scale, he heads straight for another exam
room. Luckily it is empty, but I have to
grab him just as his chubby fingers are reaching around the knob of another
room(closed doors=patients having exams).
Back to the purple room we go which is where the entertainment
starts. During our wait to see the nurse
practitioner, the boys manage to hold several wrestling matches, at various
points they pin each other. Furniture
gets rearranged. The NP comes in to
examine Bart, suddenly the boys are very curious, come right up into her face
and sit there saying “it’s okay buddy” to Bart to “help” keep him calm. Then they’re back to their wrestling
match. They tire of this and begin
crawling around the floor making the most bizarre cat noises I have heard. I try to keep one eye on them, one hand on
Bart so he doesn’t roll off the exam table, and attempt to have a coherent
conversation with the NP. She decides we
should try a nebulizer treatment and should also get a chest x-ray as a
precaution. She goes out to get one of
the nurses to bring the pulse ox and nebs in. I begin frantically texting and calling my
mother-in-law to have her pick Josie up at school because it is clearly going
to be a LONG appointment. By the time
the other nurse comes in with the pulse ox and nebs, the boys have flung off
their shoes and socks, Jimmy is wearing his socks like gloves(or maybe he is
pretending they are some sort of animal paws, who knows). The nurse has to go out in the hallway to get
something, I pray she shuts the door because any open door is a magnet for
Sawyer to bolt. Sure enough she leaves
it open. Deep breaths deep breaths,
sweat starting to bead on my forehead.
She comes back before my little escape artist can leave. Jimmy every so often decides to yell at the
top of his lungs which forces me to yell at him to quiet down, but alas, no one
is being “mommy’s helper” today. The
nurse gets me set up with the nebulizer with Bart on my lap. Trying to stay focused as she tells me this
will take about ten minutes. Dear God
please don’t leave is what I really want to shout, but all I can do is pretend
I have it all under control and smile and say okay. Gently bouncing Bart with my knee as I keep
him content while nebbing him. Muttering
about a million threats at the boys to “calm down! Sit down! Put that chair down!” Another nurse pops in- this is Bart’s
girlfriend who knows us from the many other times we’ve been seen for this
cough. She chats for a minute, helps
turn off the nebulizer and goes to leave and now the boys are lying flat out
across the floor- awesome! Sawyer then
decides to sit against the door so she can’t leave. She asks as politely as she can for him to
move and in the end, I have Bart in one arm and reach across and lug Sawyer
away from the door. Jimmy starts up with
taunting Sawyer by throwing his shoes under the stroller. I tell him sternly to knock it off and then
he yells “No! You poopie idiot!” This
poor young nurse must just be thinking- I am never having kids! We survive the rest of the visit and head out
to take the elevator down to the lobby to meet my mother-in-law and Josie so I
can take Bart to the imaging place in the same building to get his chest
x-ray. I feel like I can maybe start to
relax a bit, but then Sawyer books down the hall towards the elevator. First I think oh he wouldn’t get on it. But you can never trust this one so I am
forced to pick up my pace to full speed, have to eventually take my hand off
the stroller and leave Bart and Jimmy to catch Sawyer. Winning parenting moment of my day occurs as
I let go of the stroller(with Bart in it) and am almost at Sawyer I hear the
stroller bump into the wall. Grab Sawyer and rush back to baby Bart who
miraculously is unscathed. Note to self:
purple is not a calming color!
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