Is There a Cure for Waiting Room Disorder?

Brigid had her 18-month well-baby visit on Wednesday and had to get two shots -- her Hep A and a flu shot, both of which didn't go very well. It took a long time to calm her down. But she started reacting long before the shots were given. When we walked into the exam room she turned and tried to burrow out between my legs in an escape attempt. When I got her inside the room and on the table, she tried to dead-weight herself off. I had to strip her down so she could be weighed and measured. When I put her down on the table, head at the wall so the nurse could measure her length, she started screaming bloody murder; she did the same thing when placed on the scale. The nurse measured 31 and a half inches and 23.12 pounds, but with all her thrashing about, I don't know how accurate either of those measurements are. She feels like she weighs 40 pounds dripping wet. When Dr. Chaskey came in, she gave him a suspicious glare and wouldn't let me put her on the table so he could listen to her chest. He managed to look in her ears but only because I held her in a death grip. She just wanted out of there, and the worst was yet to come. They made us wait a long, long time for the nurse to return with her shots, and that was almost as hard as the exam because Brigid just wanted out. When the nurse finally did return with the shots, Brigid freaked and it was all we could do to hold her down on the table. She started hyperventillating afterward and I had to hold her in my lap to get her dressed. We finally got out of our 9:40 appointment at 11:45. Most of it was just waiting, which is torture for a baby. Plus, 11 a.m. is about the time Brigid is used to eating, and then she's heading into her nap time, so she was hungry and tired as well as sore.

But what really torqued me was when we arrived for the appointment, the receptionist said, "We expected you on Monday." I didn't think I heard her right so I had her repeat it. She said our appointment was on Monday. I said she was mistaken, and we had an appointment card on the calendar that said otherwise. She maintained that they not only expected us Monday, but that they had called. I know for a fact that we had no voice mail left; I didn't take a call from them, and Jack didn't say anything about a confirmation call. Then during the exam, Chaskey said something about wondering where we were on Monday. I repeated that we had the appointment card and that we hadn't received any confirmation call. He suggested the handwriting may have looked like a "9" as in Sept. 19 but in fact it was Sept. 17? I said it's possible, but it's the first thing I looked at when I got home, and sure enough, the appointment card said Sept. 19 not once but twice. I called his office to tell them it was not me; the mistake was theres and I didn't want them to go on thinking I was either crazy or just plain rude. This mixup on their part is one of the reasons we were kept waiting so long -- they were able to "squeeze us in" between appointments. Well, that was MY appointment. I was pretty torqued, and I had a baby who was out of sorts the rest of the day. By nighttime, she was very sore and cranky. I'd given her some Tylenol and that seemed to help, but she was very floppy at 8 that night so I put her to bed earlier than she normally goes down. Yesterday she seemed her old self, which is to say she was just a tad less demanding and whinny and clingy.

Brigid's vocabulary continues to grow, with her saying "Book" and "Milk" very clearly and with a very loud "uk" sound at the end. She said "Jello" over and over again when she had some at dinner last night. She says something that sounds like (and means) "read" when she looks for and hands you a book. She says "Bettabee" for Little Bear (one of her videos). And this morning, I swear she was saying something for Margaret, because she repeated it when she was looking for her. I'll have to figure out what it is so I can write it down. "Margaret" isn't the easiest word for babies to say; hence, "Mimi," which Patricia dubbed her as a baby. Haven't heard "Patricia" yet, at least not that I know.

Speaking of Mimi, we had the open house last night at the middle school where parents follow their child's schedule on a much-much abbreviated course. It was fun, and we like her teachers very much. Her "team" does a block-teaching method where they have two periods each of math and science, for instance, and the next day the have two periods each of English and social studies instead of the usual one period per class per day. It's more concentrated, the kids don't spend half the day coming and going and the homework for each class is every other day instead of every day. Margaret loves it, and she loves her classes, so we're very pleased. The team teachers seem very committed and enjoy the team approach. We're so proud of how Margaret has blossomed at Stafford. Today is election day for class representatives for Student Council. Margaret was nominated (the reps come from all social studies classes) and she made up fliers for campaigning. She said she doesn't care about the outcome, but she'll happily serve if elected.

Patricia was anguishing over taking an instrument and finally (I think) decided against it this year. She's concerned over missing classwork during band and lessons, and I think she truly would rather be involved in class discussion than have to just make up the work. She also has an interest in playing the piano, but how far that goes is still up in the air.

Dance classes start for all of us next week. The girls have tap and jazz on Tuesday and Wednesday nights; I pick up jazz again on Fridays. Should be fun to get back into the swing of things. Before long, Brigid will be hula-hula-ing it along with the rest of us. Now that she is really mobile, it will be difficult to bring her to dance class with me when I bring the girls. She'll want to be out there on the dance floor with them. I may have to be one of those moms who just drops the girls off and picks them up now. We'll see next week. This weekend, however, Dad is taking Margaret and Patricia to the lake and I'm staying in town with the baby. If I can get some things done around the house with her underfoot, fine; if I can't, then we'll find some fun things to do together on our own. It's supposed to be a great weekend weather-wise, which is also a good opportunity for Jack to be at the lake to get some things done up there. The temps are supposed to plumet again on Sunday. I hope this isn't it for Indian Summer.