Today I took my boys to the doctor for their yearly physical. Let's just say that the overall experience was less than great. In fact, its entirely possible that somewhere in their charts they have now been categorized as 'slow'. You'd think that after having done this every year for the past 12, I'd be better at 'prepping' my kids for the 'interview' portion of the visit! You know what I mean....the part where they ask questions like "what color is this?" "can you count to 10?' etc. For some reason, my kids (especially the boys) leave their brains in the car when we go to the pediatrician and end up just staring at the doctor with a dumb, blank half smile. Today was no exception...
First the eye test. Keaton passed with flying colors. Kellen (age 5).....not so much. For starters, he doesn't know his letters very well so after he guessed his way through the right eye and the nurse diagnosed him as blind, I suggested we use the chart with the shapes. This was better except for the fact that circles were not circles to him but rather 'donuts and cookies'. It was actually sort of funny to hear that little voice calling out "star.....cross.....donut.....hand......cookie, etc." Hmmm.....I wonder where he gets his preoccupation with food????
Next, the dreaded questions to measure intelligence. Both boys failed miserably. As the doctor asks the questions, each of them look at me like deer in headlights. Kellen was up first. "Kellen, what color is my shirt?" He smiles, laughs nervously, looks at me, then the doctor, smiles some more and says "brown?" (her shirt was white). I'm thinking "brown?? what the heck"?! She then asks if he knows his numbers. "Not really' he replies. (At least he's honest!) The final question was "do you know where you live?" He said, "in my house'... which I personally thought was a great answer. If she was looking for "washington" or "spokane" she should have been more specific!
Keaton's turn. I will tell you that before we left to go to the doctor, we went over the months of the year (which he flunked at last year's physical) and all other random information that I thought they might ask. Of course, this year ....they didn't ask that. The first question they asked was his age, which he got wrong. (A proud moment for me). I'm just going to assume that little glitch was because he just had a birthday (he's 10) and not because he really doesn't know. He did well on the next couple of questions but said he had no idea what our address was and claimed to not know our phone # either. As she is asking these important questions, Kellen is staring at Keaton with his mouth sort of hanging open, tongue out. Oh my....the doctor had a lot to write after that.
Keaton also stated that his favorite subject in school is "PE" and Kellen told her his favorite is "playing" and "snack" which I think really dazzled her.
5 immunizations (4 for Kellen, 1 for Keaton) and we were on our way. Tomorrow, I'm going to start prepping for next year. I'm hopeful that we can redeem ourselves!
