Three Year Check-Up

Yesterday was Lily's three-year-old check-up visit with Dr. White. At home, Lily seems to adore Dr. White. Sometimes she will get a bump, and she'll say "I go see Dr. White." She then pushes her little car to the door, plays for a minute, comes back and says "I went to see Dr. White. I all better now." Aunt Kendall gave her a play doctor's kit for her birthday, and Lily loves it. So for a couple of days, I had been telling her things like "Dr. White has a stethoscope like that" thinking it would make the visit easier. Lily was very excited as we pulled into the parking lot and as we waited. We arrived about 10 minutes early, so she watched some of the movie that was on, we read a book and she literally ran circles around the table. Then she said "I need to go potty," so I told the receptionist we were going to step into the restroom. Right then a nurse came out the door and called for Lily. It was all downhill from here.

The receptionist looked at the nurse and said "She needs to use the potty" to which the nurse replied "Oh that's good because we need a specimen." Are you kidding me? Lily just learned to use the potty a couple of weeks ago, and you want me to get her to pee in a cup? No way, but I told the nurse I would try. We went into the bathroom and Lily climbed onto the potty and then I said "I'm going to put this little cup under you, and I want to see if you can pee-pee in it." Lily immediately started saying "NO! I no want to pee-pee in the cup!" I tried one more time, saw it wouldn't work and put it down. Lily then decided she didn't want to use the potty at all now. Bribing her with pretty pink soap made her think twice, but she still refused. Oh well, at least she was calm.

We walked back out, and I told the nurse it didn't happen. She said "No big deal, let's just step on the scale now to see how much you weigh." Lily's response: "NO! I NO STAND ON THE SCALE! NO! NO! NO!" I'm pretty sure she then proceeded to cry out about a pound of tears. I tried to tell her she just had to stand there right next to me; she didn't have to do anything and the nurse wouldn't touch her. She didn't care. Apparently to her, this was the worst thing ever, that is, until the nurse said "I've got a good estimate on her, so let's just let her stand next to the scale so we can see how tall she is." Apparently, standing against a wall is worse than standing on a scale. "NO! NO! NO! I NO STAND BY WALL! I NO SEE HOW TALL I AM!" You have got to be kidding me. I cannot even begin to tell you how frustrated and angry I was at Lily right now. Sure, pitch a fit at getting a shot; I understand that. But all she had to do was stand there - come on!!! Finally I pretty much had to push myself against her and hold her head back to see how tall she was. For the record, she is 32.6 pounds (75th percentile) and 36.5 inches (50th percentile).

We went into the little room where Lily calmed down while the nurse was away getting a little gown. She liked the "pretty pink dress" she brought back, and we had fun practicing with the blood pressure cuff. We read a couple of Disney books, and I thought "Alright, she'll be fine now." Then Dr. White came in and said "Hello Lily!" Lily immediately stuck her thumb in her mouth and buried her head into my arm. She refused to answer any of Dr. White's questions about her birthday or birthday party. I tell you, Lily does this often and it is so frustrating to me. I know she is such a smart little girl who is pretty good at telling you what she wants/feels/needs/etc. but when you get her around someone unfamiliar, she totally clams up. I feel like Dr. White thinks I'm lying about her (not that she has ever given me reason to think that she would think that).

Anyway, Lily refused to talk, so Dr. White washed her hands and said "Okay Lily. I'm going to look at your pretty eyes and ears." Care to take a guess at Lily's response? Yep: "NO! I NO HAVE PRETTY EYES! NO LOOK IN MY EARS!" So again, I had to force Lily's head to look one way so she could look in her ears (which she has some fluid build-up; more about that in a minute), but I couldn't force her to open her eyes. It was easy for Dr. White to get a good look in her mouth though. She said her mouth and teeth look just fine but she really should see a dentist by now. I said "I know, but I'm afraid of this meltdown happening." Dr. White laughed and said "It probably will, but they can usually handle it" and handed me a sheet with several local pediatric dentists on it. She finished the rest of the exam, asked some questions about her behavior and routines (sleeping, exercising, eating), reminded us that she shouldn't see tv for more than an hour a day (which I'm pretty sure she sees more than that because she LOVES to watch the sing-a-long dvd's and a couple of shows plus we like to have the background noise; we need to be more mindful of that though), explained some basic nutrition things I asked about and then we talked about her hearing.

I have a little concern about Lily's hearing. She will often ask me to turn up the volume on the dvd's she is watching. Also, we'll be sitting close to each other and she'll say "What you say Mommy?" I'm not sure if she literally didn't hear me, or if she just didn't understand what I was trying to say. Dr. White recommended a couple of ENT doctors who could test her hearing once she saw there was some fluid in there. Of course, Ryan has always had lots of problems with his ears and hearing, and we have concerns about Mia's ears for several months, so I'm not terribly surprised by this recommendation. Now comes the fun of figuring out which doctor to see and what our insurance does and doesn't cover.

Oh, by the way, Lily cried the whole time Dr. White and I talked. I have to say this is one of the reasons I really like Dr. White. Not only do I of course think she is a very smart doctor who is more than capable of dealing with my kids' health, but she never makes me feel rushed even when I have a SCREAMING child sitting in my lap; she simply talked louder so I could hear her. I appreciated that. I apologized to her as she walked out of the room, and she just kind of laughed and said not to worry about it. I'm sure they get crying kids throughout the day, but I hate it when it's my kid.

After Dr. White left, Lily started saying she wanted to go bye-bye, but the nurse walked back in. She convinced Lily to put the blood pressure cuff on which Lily did without crying. The nurse then whispered to me "I'm so sorry because I feel like I got some trust there, but now she gets her flu shot." I had to hold Lily down while she got the shot, but she stopped crying after about 10 seconds after it was over. We got her dressed (though she said she wanted to wear the pink dress home), and I told her it was time to go. She perked right up, opened and held the door for me and we walked back to the reception area. The receptionist gave her a little cookie, and we chatted for a second about how awful it is to have a kid that screams the whole time (the receptionist is a family friend of ours, fyi). She said some kids start screaming as soon as they enter the parking lot so not to worry about it. It made me feel marginally better.

Lily ate half the cookie and said she was going to save the rest to show to Daddy. She held the other half in the car and just kept looking at it as if deciding did she really want to show it to him or give in to the temptation and eat it. Lucky for her, the doctor's office is literally two minutes from our house, so she didn't have to wait long. She ran into the house and this was her conversation with Ryan:
Lily: Look Daddy!
Ryan: Oh you got a cookie! Did you have a good visit with Dr. White?
Lily: Yeah!
I just stood behind her shaking my head. Really, does she consider that good? In my book, that's about the worst it can get. Miserable.