Going to the doctor, got your earplugs? - 5/22/08

Today is Susannah’s 2 week appointment, and Layne’s 18 month appointment. Sarah asked that I tag along as Layne is not always the most cooperative child at the doctor’s office. I have not taken him to the doctor in awhile, but apparently he acts fine in the waiting room, but once they start walking to the exam room he breaks down. Marshall stayed home to play with Grams, allowing things to be slightly easier for Sarah and I.

We get there and thanks to Susie’s newborn status are called back pretty quickly. Layne does ok on the walk back, so we start to feel a bit better. In the waiting room he is acting a bit reserved, which if you know Layne is extremely odd behavior. He just stands there slowly eating his snack, just staring at everything around him.

The nurse comes in and tells us everyone needs to be weighed. I am holding Susie at this point, so I start to get her down to her diaper, and the nurse for some reason asks that Layne take his shoes and clothes off as well. Sarah gets no further than sliding his shoes off when he goes ballistic. And I don’t mean a simple tantrum, he proceeds to scream pretty much for the next 40 minutes. They quickly give up on getting his clothes off and weigh him just without his shoes. We try all we can to calm him, but nothing works. It is as if he is just flat-out terrified of this place. I have to hold him while the doctor checks him out. We finish with him first and they still need to look at a few things for Susie, so he and I leave the office and I attempt to calm him down outside. I end up having to go to the car to get a book, and we just sit down on the ground and read, and he slowly gets (somewhat) calm.

Oh, and they were apparently doing some construction/renovations at the office there, so many of the ceiling tiles were missing in the exam rooms. Prior to the screaming, we could hear the people in the next room clear as a bell. So hope he didn’t freak out any other children.

Apparently after I went to work later that morning, he sat outside on the swing with Grams and Marshall. Grams said he just sat close to here, and every few minutes would shudder. Poor kid. As an infant, he was something of an uptight baby, but now is generally much more laid back about things. Guess he still has it in him. And apparently he doesn’t do anything half-way; he goes all-out.