Thursday, August 29, 2013

I probably won't be getting a raise

I'll start by saying that we have a really great pediatrician. like, she gets it. At our first appointment, when I had been a mother for two days and wondering why my baby wouldn't eat or sleep and what I had gotten myself into, she said it was absolutely ok to supplement with formula and it was absolutely ok to use a pacifier and that everything was going to be alright. She's great.
But. I can't help but feel like Dr. R is my boss and every wellness checkup is a job performance review. An evaluation of my effectiveness as a mother.The last appointment didn't go so well. I think the only reason I walked away with a satisfactory rating is because I'm not on meth. I pretty much failed every question on the exam.
"Has Ivy switched from a bottle to a sippy cup?" Ummmm....
"Is Ivy eating fruits and vegetables?" Does feeding the dog her carrots and fruit snacks count?
"Are you brushing her teeth twice a day?" Wait, what?
"Is Ivy talking?" No, but she does say "meow" whenever she sees a puppy.
We've had a few months to up our game and have made some real progress. She takes a bite out of her carrots before giving them to Ollie.  She sucks on her toothbrush for thirty seconds before Stephen or I wrestle her and convince her to open her mouth so we can do .3 seconds  of real  brushing. She still thinks puppies say "meow," but she knows that goats say "aaaaaaah" and roosters say "doo dooo dooo doo doo" and cows say "moo." She's also learned a few actual words. "Ollie", "poopy", "no", "puppy", "doggy", "daddy", "cookie",  "grandpa" and "go away."
Progress aside, we still have some work to do. Our appointment is next Tuesday, and I'm really hoping to get exemplary marks. However I know that's not going to happen unless we switch from the bottle to the sippy cup, and all my efforts on this front are not going well. Just seeing milk in a sippy throws Ivy into a complete melt down. She collapses on the floor and yells "NO NO NO NO NO". She runs to the kitchen, points at the bottle cupboard and looks at me with her best impression of  a starving child. So I guess I'll be packing a bottle in her kindergarten lunches.
Maybe I can get Ivy to memorize and recite the preamble to the constitution before Tuesday. Dr. R. will be so distracted by this show of brilliance that she'll totally overlook the bottle failings.  I honestly think  it would be easier than trying to convince Ivy that milk is milk regardless of the container holding it.

10 comments:

  1. If it helps, I can send you the questions before the next test...

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    1. I would be willing to pay you for this information.

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  2. I leave most of our appointments feeling like crap if it makes you feel better.

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  3. I leave most of our appointments feeling like crap if it makes you feel better.

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  5. I feel like a supermom if we brush teeth once a day for two consecutive days.

    Parenting is like, hard. Who knew?

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    1. Right? Ivy has had two timeouts since I posted this. For hitting. HITTING.

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  6. last time i took the kids to the doctor for their checkups i had to take them alone. mostly they just ran around the office and touched everything they shouldn't be touching, barely talked to the doctor, and pretended to be dumb (like alice really talked in baby talk and stuck her tongue out a lot) . they don't even act that bad in real life. and the doctor and nurse just looked at them like they didn't know what to think like they have never seen children so crazy.
    yeah.

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    1. I laughed out loud reading this. And I was outside. Reading it on my phone. Around other moms at the park.

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