Doctor, doctor
Both of my babies visited their respective doctors last week for regular check-ups and vaccinations. One of them cried and one of them pooped in the exam room. Can you guess which is which?
Lana’s six-month doctor visit actually got off to a good start. We were mercifully spared another showing of Toy Story, the movie that normally plays all day, every day in the waiting area. It’s a decent movie – one that John and I first saw it when we were freshmen in college. We saw it together and then went back to my dorm room to marvel at the state of computer animation and consume cheap pizza. Never did we imagine that 12 years later we would stare at a blank screen in a pediatrician’s waiting room and feel relieved to not be watching it again.
Once we made it to the exam room, Lana was measured and weighed. She’s currently 27.5 inches long and not quite 16 lbs, which places her in the 95th percentile for height and the 40th percentile for weight. She enjoyed the novelty of hanging out in the exam room wearing just a diaper – something we don’t usually let her do because we don’t want to perpetuate the stereotypes of southern babies and also because she’s become amazingly adept at tearing the thing off. She smiled and played with the nice doctor, and wailed when the evil nurse injected both her legs with vaccinations. I successfully fought off the urge to drop kick the nurse for sticking my baby with needles and mispronouncing Lana for the fourth time.
Rico’s trip to the vet was slightly more traumatic, mostly because he is old and wise enough to know that no good ever comes from a doctor’s visit. We began with his usual pacing of the waiting area like a man condemned to death. They don’t bother playing movies at the vet’s office – probably because they could show dog porn and it still wouldn’t distract or comfort nervous clientele like Rico.
After being dragged into the exam room, Rico proved that you can actually teach an old dog a new trick. The vet tech appeared with a fecal retrieval tool that I’ve cleverly nicknamed “the plastic spoon they stick up Rico’s butt.” Rico took one look at it and promptly took a dump on the exam room floor. The vet tech calmly collected the poop and said, “I guess we’ll just use this for our sample.” Score one for the dog.
Rico then shook uncontrollably through the weighing (25 lbs), physical examination, and nail trimming, but didn’t so much as flinch when he received two shots and had blood drawn. He received a clean bill of health and made a mad dash for the exit, but not before I paid a bill larger than the cost of Lana’s entire hospital stay. I guess that’s why puppies are born in a cardboard box and not in a veterinarian nursery.
Lana’s six-month doctor visit actually got off to a good start. We were mercifully spared another showing of Toy Story, the movie that normally plays all day, every day in the waiting area. It’s a decent movie – one that John and I first saw it when we were freshmen in college. We saw it together and then went back to my dorm room to marvel at the state of computer animation and consume cheap pizza. Never did we imagine that 12 years later we would stare at a blank screen in a pediatrician’s waiting room and feel relieved to not be watching it again.
Once we made it to the exam room, Lana was measured and weighed. She’s currently 27.5 inches long and not quite 16 lbs, which places her in the 95th percentile for height and the 40th percentile for weight. She enjoyed the novelty of hanging out in the exam room wearing just a diaper – something we don’t usually let her do because we don’t want to perpetuate the stereotypes of southern babies and also because she’s become amazingly adept at tearing the thing off. She smiled and played with the nice doctor, and wailed when the evil nurse injected both her legs with vaccinations. I successfully fought off the urge to drop kick the nurse for sticking my baby with needles and mispronouncing Lana for the fourth time.Rico’s trip to the vet was slightly more traumatic, mostly because he is old and wise enough to know that no good ever comes from a doctor’s visit. We began with his usual pacing of the waiting area like a man condemned to death. They don’t bother playing movies at the vet’s office – probably because they could show dog porn and it still wouldn’t distract or comfort nervous clientele like Rico.
After being dragged into the exam room, Rico proved that you can actually teach an old dog a new trick. The vet tech appeared with a fecal retrieval tool that I’ve cleverly nicknamed “the plastic spoon they stick up Rico’s butt.” Rico took one look at it and promptly took a dump on the exam room floor. The vet tech calmly collected the poop and said, “I guess we’ll just use this for our sample.” Score one for the dog.
Rico then shook uncontrollably through the weighing (25 lbs), physical examination, and nail trimming, but didn’t so much as flinch when he received two shots and had blood drawn. He received a clean bill of health and made a mad dash for the exit, but not before I paid a bill larger than the cost of Lana’s entire hospital stay. I guess that’s why puppies are born in a cardboard box and not in a veterinarian nursery.
posted by Guest at Tuesday, March 20, 2007
1 Comments:
So I read the first sentence of this post and figured you were talking about Lana and your husband, and so when I finished the second sentence I was floored, and I felt totally unable to meet the challenge of the third.
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