Sunday, August 9, 2009

Pediatrician Party


This week the two older princes went to the pediatrician for their yearly sports physicals. It is so nice to not have a visit necessitated by extreme vomiting. (Hmmm. Extreme Vomiting. Sounds like a show on the Spike channel.) 

When Prince Tim was a babe we were on the three-circle roller coaster of ear infections. He has one, antibiotics, recheck in two weeks, its gone, one week later back again for an ear infection... you get the idea. And no one gets to sleep on that ride. One week when the doc walked in I took one look at him and said, “I am so sick of seeing you.” I’m sure the feeling was mutual.

So while Prince Tim and the newly minted teenager Prince Matthew were in the hallway getting weighed and measured the nurse starts asking me all these questions. “How many hours are they sleeping?” “Do you want summer sloth hours or school year hours?” I say this because last week after Prince Matthew had been on the couch alternately watching the TV and snoozing, I ran into the room and poured salt on him screaming, “Slug! Slug!” 

“Are they eating well?” Is she out of her mind. Evidently the woman does not have three boys consuming food like the sharks on Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. “How are their bowel movements?” “Gee, I don’t know, that doesn’t come up during the dinnertime conversation.”

She handed me the ‘normal development’ sheets and fled. Again, another employee of Pediatricians of Dallas who is sick of seeing me.

When the boys returned the taunting began. Prince Matthew the Younger was now only 3/4 of an inch shorter than Prince Tim the Older. Matthew grew nine inches in the last two years. I checked for stretch marks on his back. 

“I’m almost as tall as you Tim!”

“Oh yeah, well I weigh 29 pounds more than you!”

“Shrimp!”

“Shrimpy jumbo moron!”

“Knock it off or I’m gonna knock your heads together! They will have to say that you both have a concussion and that’s it for your sports careers!”

That worked.

They check their hearing by sticking this thing in their ear that makes tones and the boys have to raise their hand every time they hear one. Prince Tim is taking his test and Prince Matthew starts messing with him saying, “Beep....beep” under his breath.  They both have perfect hearing and therefore have no reason to say they can’t hear me.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics 16 year olds are prone to be “self-involved.” Duh. I can’t remember the last day I didn’t look at him and say “One, two; it’s all about you.”

He also should be displaying ‘intellectual interests’ at this age. Hmm. I think at this point his cognitive pursuits are focusing on the next level of Battlefield Two and when he can go to the mall and hang out.

On the thirteen year old sheet I just had to skip over the ‘Physical Development’ part. I couldn’t read about ‘May try to experiment with body” while they were in the room. I then compensated by reading aloud.

“Hey Matthew, this says you should be showing moody behavior.” He grins, looks at me and sweetly says “Mommy, I’m not moody.” Then he switched to this screeching voice and finishes, “I NEVER AM!” Funny.

“It also says that you think in terms of the present rather than the future. I guess that explains why it is the second week of August and you still haven’t finished your summer reading essays.” Boy, he got moody then.

Next they got to pee in a cup. As they left the room I yelled down the hall, “Don’t forget to test for amphetamines. And STDs while you’re at it.” 

They checked out well and are both healthy boys. Physically of course.  Being raised by me will probably wreck havoc with their mental health. But I am a good enough mommy to take them to Sonic for slushies on the way home.

1 comment:

Melendy said...

I love your sense of humor, I have 3 boys and I can only imagine what the teen years will be like!