Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

Vomit in the Waiting Room

The great thing about having 7-year-olds is that they've long ago left behind the urge to put anything and everything into their mouths. The pediatrician's office was always the most cringe inducing to me when my boys were younger. The germy bits of everything they'd touch would inevitably end up in their mouths.

At 7, a visit to the doctor means I hand my sons a book from home and say, "Why don't you read this while we wait?"and they'll each grab the book and... read. So that's what my son was doing while at the pediatrician's office, waiting to be seen for an ache in his leg.

Then in toddled the ghost of sick baby visits past, all sticky fingered, sweaty and bewildered, a blue baby blanket half draped around him. He was about 2, this child, and he stood there in a daze as his mom plunked him down for a moment so she could check in with the receptionist.

Uh oh, I thought to myself, here come all the sick kids.

Then it happened. The poor little fellow gurgled a bit and then sputtered pink and red puke all over the place. It rained down on his clothes, on his baby blanket, on his mom, on the floor and indeed, onto the nearby train table where it flowed down to the floor in tiny drips.

I hopped up and hightailed it toward the restroom in search of paper towls.

"We need paper towels!" I told the receptionist, who I happened to see emerging from the restroom. "A boy out there has thrown up."

"Here, " she said, thrusting a handful of paper towels my way.

"Wet towels, " I answered, pushing past her toward the sink. "And it's not MY kid, " I added.

But still I wanted to help because I remember being that mom in situations like that and feeling so grateful to be surrounded by helpful strangers.

So I returned to the waiting room with wet paper towels and attempted to clean up the mess.

Meanwhile, the receptionist and the nurse failed to kick into action. They were like deer in the headlights.

Don't they see stuff like this happen all the time? Don't they have a bucket of emergency cleaning supplies on hand, just in case a sick child should, well, get sick all over the place? For God's sake, isn't this a pediatrician's office?

I moved the vomit around with my handful of towels. Swish, swish.

The mother of the sick boy was trying to comfort him. They were both dripping in vomit.

"Do you need a bag for his dirty clothes and blanket?" I asked, "I have some in my car."

"Yes," she said, "thank you."

But just when I turned to go, the nurse overheard us and said, "Don't we have garbage bags here?"

At that point, we got called into a room and I left the receptionist and the nurse to help the sick boy and his mother.

Of course, you should have garbage bags. And gloves. And disinfectant. And kind words of comfort BECAUSE YOU ARE A PEDIATRICIAN'S OFFICE. You've seen this before, right?

I have never warmed to the front office staff at our pediatrician's office and it's only out of sheer laziness that I've yet to change to a new one. But I will do so, soon.

Twenty minutes later, my son and I emerged from our small room. The nice doctor gave us her opinion on my son's leg and sent us on our way.

On our way out, I noticed a container of Clorox wipes on the counter of the receptionist's desk that had not been there before. I'm sure it was used to clean up the waiting room but I know that if I'd done the white glove test, I'd have spied pink bits of vomit in the cracks of the train table, and under its legs and beyond. The receptionist had been wearing a beautiful, long winter-like sweater, the type not meant for getting down on one's hands and knees and scrubbing floors.

Heading toward the exit, we passed about 4-5 people in the waiting room. All was calm and the room seemed fairly clean. A toddler played about the train table.

I wanted to throw open the windows, spray a bit of dilluted bleach (or similar) on the train table, put up some yellow caution tape and pronounce the place a biohazard zone, but instead, we just walked past those people and into our car and drove away.

I'm sure they'll all be fine and yes, there are germs and gross things everywhere. We all assume the waiting room toys are full of germs and the remnants of bodily secretions and you know what? It is full of germs and bodily secretions. Will we get sick from it? Probably not. It's just... well, gross.

Ponder that while I move "finding a new pediatrician" to the top of my to-do list!

 

Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

 

 

 

 

Scribbling Away at Self-Esteem

My nearly 6-year-old son is a scribbler at school. When he was 4, his jerky scribbles would reveal surprisingly accurate doodles of dinosaurs and light saber battles. Rarely, though, would he fill in the lines of those doodles with color. I loved those doodles, even using them as gift tags, proud mother that I am.

The scribbling didn't bother me.

This year, in 1st grade, the scribbling continues. A couple of times, he's been made to re-do his coloring work. Don't scribble, he is told. Do it slowly and carefully. His observant 1st grade teacher is working hard to make him care about his work. The message is clear: Color within the lines. Cover up all the white spaces. He showed me how he colored in a drawing of Columbus and rather than praise the process, I pointed out the scribbles.

My son's penmanship and overall fine motor skills need improvement. Desperately. At home, we have an art station. We have every imaginable type of writing instrument. We have lined paper, handwriting paper, blank paper, coloring books and even a Toy Story handwriting practice book. Everythiing my son needs for remedial coloring 101 is at the ready. We work on it every day. It's not really that he can't do it, it's more that he doesn't want to do it.

Karma TV for Kids

In our house, there's no cable tv, no satellite tv and no TiVo. But what we do have is Karma TV and depending on your family ranking, you either love it or hate it.

Karma TV is for those young viewers like, say, my 5-year-old boys, who don't know the meaning of the word moderation when it comes to television viewing habits. We are pretty much a DVD/Netflix only family. Whatever my children watch via DVD comes to them via the generosity of Karma TV.

Here's how it appears to work - or doesn't work. When my sons are being good, Karma TV works. They push the "on" button and the television illuminates. Good = good = good is how I explain karma to them. When my sons are not on their best behavior, Karma TV shuts down. However many times my boys may push the "on" button, the television stares back at them blankly.

Here's how it really works. We have a little kit called Bye Bye Standby that serves as a master controller for devices, which in our case is the television. Turning the tv off with this controller renders the usual tv remote useless. I have to use it in secret, so it's hidden under a pile of my grandma's vintage linens which I display in the living room. Nobody has noticed it yet.

When I agree to let me boys watch tv, I have to get to the controller before they get to the TV "on" button. "You've been so good, try it, " I'll say, as we both run to our respective remotes. Sometimes, it's tricky, with my trigger happy fingers turning on the television before my boys get to the television "on" button. When this happens, my boys always look around in awe, as if magic has happened. Sometimes, they question me, "How did the tv turn on just like that?" Karma knows you've been good, I say. Though baffled, they leave it at that because I think they're afraid to mess with karma.

The Manager is Watching so Behave!

The manager is watching.

He is the guy over there with the walkie talkie, you just missed him.

She just looked your way from behind the cash register.

There! He's the well-dressed man wearing a tie.

Sometimes, they will ask me. "Is that the manager? Which one is the manager?"

That one, this one. You, my dear misbehaving children, are being watched. I asked you not to run around jump around touch anything to behave nicely and I suggest that you do so because, yes, my little dumplings, the manager is watching.

They pause, and look around, slightly concerned. Is she kidding, or has the manager really got her eye on me?

How Do You Tell Them Apart?

Hop on over to Mad About Multiples and let us know what works for you!

Kindergarten (Un)Readiness

When I was 5 years old, my mother enrolled me in kindergarten at our neighborhood school. I'm sure she didn't poll her friends to see if they'd be enrolling their age eligible kids in kindergarten because for the most part, she already knew. Most of her friends were also enrolling their children in kindergarten at their neighborhood public school. If we were age eligible, we went. It's just how it was done back then, at least in our middle class California neighborhood. Sure, a few went the private school route and a few more enlightened parents held their autumn birthday children (especially boys) back a year; but in doing so, they didn't conduct a massive search to find the "perfect" kinder prep program in the frenzied manner we do today. In fact, the children I know who sat out that first year, did most of the sitting out at home, playing with their siblings. Had I been born an October baby, I'm quite certain my parents would have enrolled me in kindergarten nonetheless and off to kindergarten I might have marched, a shy 4-year-old who might not have been quite ready.

All You Need is a Lollipop...or Sometimes Not!

The wee driver of the shiny teal convertible turns to me and smiles as if to say, "This is the life, isn't it?" With one hand casually gripping the wheel and the other hand tasked with holding a grape lollipop at the ready, my three-year-old J is the picture of a carefree existence. I smile back, but he has already shifted his attention elsewhere. On a TV just in front of him, a friendly blue dog and his friendly pal Joe have just encountered a moon fairy. "It's Blue's Clue's, Mom! " chirps J, through sticky lips stained purple, making him look as if he really could be one of Blue's friends. Somewhere just outside his consciousness, a stranger is circling his head like a gnat, snipping away at his hair with scissors, but J hardly notices. J is having a blast.