Doctor’s Office and Diarrhea.
Ahhh, the doctor’s office… We have only been there, ohhh, 5 or 6 times in the last month between well visits and sick visits (boo).
Tuesday was a well-turned-sick visit. Our dear babe has been battling a double ear infection since Thanksgiving and had finished her 4th round of antibiotics, which did absolutely nothing for her. She also managed to pick up a lovely respiratory virus from daycare. In all of our misery, Mommy and baby up and went to the doctor’s office to discuss all of these issues.
It was quite the circus trying to get her ready to go. She was tired, cranky and not feeling well - as was I. It was freezing and flurrying outside and I spent the first hours of my morning cursing my husband for never having to go to the pediatrician with her. She screamed most of the ride down and, despite all of my pacifier gymnastics, she spit each one out after I was able to reach back and get her to take it. (Side note: I keep a plethora of pacifiers in the front seat with me in case she spits the first one out.)
We arrived at the doctor’s office a wee bit early and after coming inside from a 20 degree parking lot, the office -which is always heated to sauna status- felt like it was 1,000 degrees. There was virtually no one in the office however, and I figured we should just keep our coats and covers on because we would more-than-likely be called in right away. HA HA! Twenty minutes passed and it seemed that everyone who walked in after us was getting called in before us. E was becoming extremely fussy and I was practically melting. I figured it was time for me to give in and take her out of the car seat. There were moms and dads all over the office now looking at me as if I had nineteen heads. I felt their wide-eyed-but-blank expressions burning a hole through my forehead. Was I really torturing her by keeping her in her seat? Don’t they remember what a pain in the ass it is to take her out in the waiting room? I mean, C’mon! Your kid is sneezing all over the place and chucking his dinosaurs at the little girl coloring at the table, but you’re looking at me as if my parenting choices are out of whack?!
Anyway, I unbuckled my crying daughter and lifted her oh-so-gently out of her car seat and proceeded to give her a giant hug and that’s when I felt it - POOP! ALL over her clothes, the Bundle Me and now my arm and leg. I could have died of embarrassment and sheer terror. I just knew that as soon as we got into the bathroom to change her (and luckily, I had an extra change of clothes), the nurse would come looking for us.
Sure enough, as I was changing her in the bathroom (which never, ever seems to be big enough) the nurse came-a-knockin’. I needed a few more minutes, of course, so I politely let her know that we would “be a few”. Naturally, E was not too thrilled about anything that day so she was kicking and screaming her way through the change, which made it uber difficult to complete the task. It also seemed as if the bathroom was perfect for heightening her wails to “stereo” proportions.
THEN the nurse knocked on the door -not once, but TWICE- to see if we “were ok”! What did she think? -I was changing her out of an entire pooped-up outfit, with little room to work in and my coat still on! Of course we were ok, I just needed her to leave me the hell alone so I could finish cleaning up. I mean, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place if we were just called back when we were supposed to be. I would have had her undressed and been able to hear the first signs of her explosion before it got out of hand.
In the end, E cried her way through the appointment and after finally arriving back to the car, I realized that on top of everything else, we had no gas…
