Today was Zach's 18 month check up with the pediatrician. His 18 month check up when he is really 19 months old....why?? Apparently there was a SIX WEEK WAIT for a wellness check up with our pediatrician. SIX WEEKS? I can call any day of the week and get a same day appointment if my kid is sick...but heaven forbid I set up an appointment for a "healthy" child. So yeah....I pitched a fit about this six weeks ago when the appointment was made. Little did I know six weeks later the actual day of the appointment would be just as horrible. I warn you now this post is a bunch of complaining.
Appointment is at 3:50pm. The plan was to pick up Zach early from the sitter and head to the appointment like we always do for wellness visits. Slight hiccup today - Dustin is sick at home in bed with the flu so Jen is the lone ranger for this appointment. Zach is fussy in the car on the ride to the pediatrician's. For some reason lately Zach HAS to eat something when he is in the car - or he whines and whines and whines. He has also been a bottomless pit lately...no matter what you do you can't keep this kid full - he is ALWAYS eating. So he is eating goldfish and happy. Then we get to the office and Jen has to "move" the goldfish bag to get Zach out of the car seat. Zach isn't happy about that and starts to CRY. My kid is CRYING because the goldfish bag got moved. Nice.
We walk in the office and he calms down...checks out the fish tank. Then the nurse calls his name and he sits on the floor refusing to move. This isn't like Zach - he normally flirts with the nurses. Not today. I pick him up and carry him to the exam room. He sees the basket of suckers along the way and starts to whine and cry because he didn't get a sucker as we walked past. We get into the exam room and the nurse asks what is wrong...I explain he saw the suckers...so he runs out and gets him one. He takes off the wrapper and just holds the top of the sucker with his hand. He didn't want to eat it, just hold it....hold it long enough to make his hands sticky. He starts whining again - all while the nurse is trying to "quickly" take his growth measurements and weight.
Then we had a five minute wait for the pediatrician to come in. During those five minutes Zach continues to cry, whine, throw his cup on the ground, throw his sucker, throw his goldfish....but ate the teddy grahams. The pediatrician comes in - Zach moves into STRANGER DANGER mode. He wanted nothing to do with the pediatrician. He kept pulling the stethoscope off his chest. He screamed when the pediatrician looked in his ears. He laughed when the ear scope made a sucking noise on his stomach. Everything looks normal. We get Zach dressed and ready for his two shots.
The nurse comes in to give Zach his shots. Normally they would have him lay on the table, hold him down and put one shot in each leg. This time she just had him sit on my lap, while she gave him two shots in the same leg. He screamed like he always does for the shots. But then when she put the band-aid over the injection spot I noticed this huge scratch on his leg. The nurse scratched his leg from the injection point about three inches long down the top of his thigh WITH THE NEEDLE. Obviously I pointed out - uh you scratched him with the needle...she says "oops - sorry" and shrugs her shoulders, hands me 18 month old behavior expectation paperwork and Zach's growth card. BAM - we are done.
I start packing up all the "gear" us moms lug around with kids (diaper bag, snacks, toys, etc), tuck the paperwork way (without looking at it), bee line it back to the sucker stash and grabbed Zach a handful. The kid deserved it after that shot experience. Of course this made him smile and STOP whining....and he continued to stay happy the whole drive home with a sucker in each hand.
Later on this evening I started looking at that "paperwork" they gave me. I am squinting over Zach's growth numbers...they didn't make sense....my 75th percentile baby all of a sudden was this:
Head = 48.5cm = 70th percentile
Weight = 25.4lbs = 30th percentile
Length = 31.5in = 25th percentile
What? My kid is now a string bean with a big head? We know he has a big head (one of the reasons I needed a C-Section!)...the weight...yeah I could believe that, he has only gained 2.5lbs in the last 9 months...our home scale a few weeks ago said he was 26 pounds but he has been playing pretty hard at the babysitters and is wiped every night. The length....no way my kid is 31.5 inches. He measured 31.5 inches at his 12 month appointment - SEVEN MONTHS AGO. Dustin and I get the tape measure out - he is 33 to 33.5 inches tall. Not sure how the nurse managed to miss an extra two inches in all her haste at that appointment.
I sure hope future wellness check ups are better than this one!
Venting done.....and I already scheduled his two year check up (5 months in advance).
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