dread...

tomorrow morning i have to take the two youngest children for checkups. one for her two month checkup and the other for his three year. seems simple enough, yes? only to someone who has never done such a thing. especially someone who has never done so with the craziest three year old in toddler history and the cutest baby who screams any time she's in her carseat! are you catching on to the fun yet? stay with me here. first of all, we see a family practitioner, not a pediatrician. so the office is normally filled with not so happy elderly people and magazines for those people. not a toy or children's book in sight. and they are always running behind. never fails. you can count on spending at least thirty minutes, minimum, in that waiting area. so imagine that you are doing so with a baby who insists on either nursing or crying, a toddler who is rearranging the chairs, and twenty old people who are either glaring or telling you what you should do about it. cause there is truly nothing more appreciated in those moments of pure parenting hell than having a person who 97 years old inform you that they have a better way of raising your children than what you are doing. thank you so much for sharing, stranger.then you get into that tiny room (which is an improvement because at least now the before mentioned crazy toddler is contained in a smaller area) where you wait another thirty minutes, only this time with a cold baby since they have asked you to strip her down to her diaper. by this point, the toddler is starting to really freak out as he hates being weighed, having his temp taken or basically being touched in any way by the doctor. i'm not sure what this extreme aversion is about because our doctor truly is the nicest, gentlest man ever. but either way, he hates it. so now everyone is crying. our only ray of light by this point is that when it's over they'll give him a sticker and a sucker which will keep him quiet on the ride home. at least he doesn't have to come back for another year. we'll be back with the baby in two months!
p.s. the pic above is to illustrate the craziness of this little man. he was literally unattended for two minutes when he managed to get the peanut butter out of an upper cabinet (which requires climbing the stove), get a large spoon and hide in his siblings bedroom to eat it. he's in their "fort".