How To Be A Toddler: Going to the Doctor

The Boy is now 21 months old. That's almost two, for those of you who don't measure time in months. Twenty one months is the perfect age for playing, and jumping off things and exploring, and is not the perfect age for sitting quietly or waiting patiently. Today I had an appointment to go back to the orthopedist about my shoulder (see this post for more on that), and The Boy can't get rid of his hacking cough, so The Husband and I decided this morning he didn't need to go to school as I'd planned. That meant he'd be going with me. Challenging. And he was much like a toddler should be at an adult doctor's appointment.

If you are interested in becoming a toddler in the near future, read these tips on the proper methods of going to the doctor with a parent. 

1. Sit in every chair in the waiting room. You must sit in every single chair, and when other patients smile at you, look at them like you are both angry with and terrified of them. Smile broadly in a way that conveys you are cute at waiting patients who ignore you.

Sit with your parent to read a farm book. Loudly and excitedly announce all the farm animal sounds to no one in particular. Shriek animatedly for at least one minute. Make sure it is a happy noise so there's nothing anyone can do to quieten you. If someone comes out of their appointment and points at you and says "there's that baby we heard screaming" beam proudly at them. 

2. When you get into the exam room, touch every surface. Once you've touched every surface, put your hand completely in your mouth and leave it there. Attempt to take things out of the trash can. When you are redirected, put a magazine into the trash can.  Ask for a cookie from your bag, and while your parent fetches it, try to sit on the doctor's wheelie chair. Fall out. Take your cookie and place it on every surface that you previously touched. Take a bite of your cookie, put it down on the dirtiest surface in the room and use that as a drum. Smile and announce "I dwummin!" 

3. Before the doctor arrives, dance excitedly around the room. Exclaim "I a el-phant" and make large elephant gestures and stomps. Try to get under the exam table. Ask 45 times where "mommy docta is?" and throw your hands in the air. Knock on the door and yell out "Hey Docta!" when you hear someone in the hall. 

4. When the doctor comes in, do not make eye contact with him or her. Put your cookie on your mouth, but do not eat it. Let it turn to mush and let said mush ooze out of your mouth. Be weird.  When the doctor speaks kindly to you, be afraid. Act like you cannot talk at all, then only speak when grown ups are speaking, at which point whine for more cookie. You'll get it. 

5. When it is time to check out, run in circles while you're waiting. Other grown ups will take pity on your parent and let you go to the front of the line. Announce to the kind lady doing her job "I READY!" if it takes more than 30 seconds to check out, pay, and make another appointment. If she doesn't comply with your readiness, run away. When you have been drug back to complete your parent's business, take all the osteoporosis pamphlets off the desk. Talk obsessively about the bicycle that it features. When it's finally time to go, hop down a flight of stairs, one stair at a time. 

6. If you are with your parent because you are sick, do not cough at all. All day.