Three-Fer-One

We took everyone to the pediatrician yesterday. One major advantage of having children born 18 months apart is I can schedule their 6- and 24-month checkups on the same day. Here’s a little secret for all the parents out there: Pediatric clinics hate it when parents bring more than one child in for an appointment at the same time. In my case, the visit takes three times as long as a singleton, the staff has to pull and fill out three times the paperwork, and it’s pandemonium trying to keep straight which child has been checked for what. Here’s a little secret for all the pediatric clinics out there: My life is like that everyday, and it’s thrice as hard for me to get out of the house for three separate appointments than it would be for one mega-appointment.

I changed, dressed, and fed everyone as quickly as possible. Afterwards, I packed up everyone to travel to the clinic, and when I say “I” I mean “Ellie,” because I was still eating cereal while she was loading boys into the stroller. It was a good thing that she could sneak away from work long enough to help us travel or else we would have been a little late, and the clinic may have been looking for any possible reason to cancel our three-for appointment.

It was also good that she was with us to help hold and entertain children, because it was pandemonium with trying to keep three kids straight. As it was, there were only two of us to hold, entertain, and listen to the doctor, so someone was left to fend for themselves at all times, whether that meant a baby was lying on the floor and squawking for attention, or Abbie was rummaging through the medical waste container.

The check-up went well albeit a little hectic. Abbie got a shot, blood drawn from her arm, three stickers, and several handfuls of Goldfish to calm her down. She measured 90th percentile in weight, 80th percentile in height (35 inches), and 35th percentile in head size. That means we can look forward to a basketball or possibly volleyball scholarship, which is good because she’s not going to get an academic full-ride unless that head size catches up. Her weight means we can drop her from whole milk to 2%, which should save us enough money each month to buy an extra half-ounce of the twins’ Nutramigen.

The boys got two shots each plus an oral vaccine. Tory continues to bloat up nicely as his 16 lbs, 4 ozs puts him in the 40th percentile, which is pretty good for a kid who started life at 4 lbs, 5 ozs. The doctor had to check to make sure he had the right chart when he plotted a growth curve that looked steep enough for Wile E Coyote to fall off of. Ian continues to grow just fine, though not at Tory’s Brando-ish pace. He weighed 13 lbs, 14 ozs, putting him in the 3rd percentile. Take that the 2 percent of his peer group that’s smaller.

Then came the disturbing part. My kids have always had great checkups, which obviously means I’m a great parent. The doctor might have a few suggestions like “wipe better,” “cut her hair,” or “seriously, cut her hair,” but he’s never referred us to a specialist. Yesterday though, he looked at Ian, noticed his eye could be rolling in a little,* and referred us to a pediatric eye specialist. Then he looked at Tory, noticed that he prefers to cock his head to the right,** and referred us to a physical therapist for some stretching exercises. Then he listened to Abbie, noticed that her sole form of verbal communication is screaming, and referred us to a developmental pediatrician to try to determine why she isn’t talking yet.

The worst part about the last referral is he didn’t tell me, he told Ellie. He told her in the hall while the boys were screaming from shots and I couldn’t possibly hear. Apparently I’m one of Those Parents: The kind that worries too much. The kind that freaks out at the phrase “developmental pediatrician.” The kind that sets up three-for appointments.

So now I’m trying to remember to stretch Tory’s neck at every diaper change, and waiting for further specialists to tell us if we have anything concrete to worry about, or if we should just watch them and worry about maladies in the back of my mind. These appointments with specialists should be thorough; the boys see the eye doctor without Abbie, and Abbie sees the pediatrician without the boys, so pandemonium should definitely not ensue.

* He asked me if I’d ever noticed this. I said “no,” but afterwards realized that I only pay attention to the child who’s crying (or crying the hardest) and can’t notice which way the eyes are pointed when the lids are clamped shut from screaming.
** I had noticed this. It’s hard to miss when the flat part on the back of his head is angled because he always sleeps with his head turned to one side.