The Dreaded Doctor's Appointments

Doctor’s Appointments: with four kids, I feel like we have been at one doctor or another continuously for the past year.  For the regular visits, in some ways it is amazing to see that they are on track developmentally, but these appointments frequently come with negative things as well (i.e. shots), and for all other appointments, it is usually because something is wrong.  Therefore, going to the doctor is never fun.  This past weekend, the three youngest all got to see a doctor at one point.  Ugh.

On Friday, Kai had his 4-month appointment.  As with all regular check-ups, it starts with the fun part: finding out how he’s tracking.  All of my kids were born at an average size but exploded around the second month and just keep up the trend.  Kai did not disappoint - it was awesome to see that Kai is still growing at a ridiculous rate: he is in the 98^th percentile for weight, 88^th for height, and 91^st for head-circumference.  My doctor at one point even said things like, “he’s basically the size of a one-year-old” or “giving mommy strong biceps”.  All nice ways of saying, “your kid’s a beast”.  Which is true… a beast, but the cutest beast ever.  Then we got to the end of the appointment: it was shots time.  Three shots to be exact.  It is absolutely heartbreaking to see your child go from extremely happy to shocked from pain in less than a second.  I’m sure it is harder on the parents than it is on the kids (that’s what they tell me anyway), but it never makes it any easier to watch your child go through this.

Then, on Saturday, we decided to get the other two their flu shots.  Bennett convinced Mila to go first even though she’s younger, and she was a champ.  She whined a little bit after the fact, but all in all, she did great.  Then it was Bennett’s turn.  My normally sweet child turned into a crazy.  He was running around the room, crying, trying to negotiate his way out of shots, etc.  I had to call Jae in to take care of it, and from the waiting room, it sounded as though he was being tortured.  It. Was. A. Flu. Shot.  He worked himself up so much that even once it was over, he got to the waiting room and puked.  I was fast enough, that I caught it all in my hands, so at least there was no mess.  But I had puke hands.  In the middle of Minute Clinic in Target. 

Here’s hoping that we don’t have to visit another doctor for a while…

On another note: I cannot believe how similar my kids look.  Here's a side by side of Bennett and Kai.  Same infectious smile.