Doctor woes

My baby is 4!  We had a good day on her birthday.  When Ryan got home from work, we set up a balloon avalanche on the ceiling in the hallway outside of her room.  The hope was when she came out, we could pull a string and they would all fall down.  It didn't work quite as smoothly, but she enjoyed having all these balloons to play with,

Last year we tried the Pinterest thing where you criss-cross streamers across their closed door, stuff balloons in between the door and streamers and when they open the door, the balloons all fall onto them.  But my weirdo child will not come out of her room on her own.  Every morning and every day after quiet time, I have to go in to get her.  I remember when we first took the front railing off her crib to make it into a toddler bed.  I was thinking here we go, the beast is free.  I envisioned waking up every day to find her trashing the living room, or coming in and jumping on my bed at 6am.  Never did I think she would never ever come out of her room on her own.

Which causes a dilemma with night potty training.  Even if she does wake up dry, she will not come out of her room to go to the bathroom.  So if she wakes up before I do, she will just pee in her pull up.  Ok more on that later.

So once she was up she opened her presents from us.  We got her a dream tent for her bed (which she LOVES.  I have to admit, it looks quite cozy, I may need to sneak a nap in there one day when she's not home), a giant TY big eye unicorn, two Llama Llama books (Mad at mama and Misses mama), a cloud bath toy, and a little Llama Llama stuffie.  He's so cute, he's wearing his red pajamas.  Oh we also got her a Melissa and Doug puzzle spelling thing.  It's a bunch of wooden plates with a picture on each one and the word is carved in the wood, so she has to pick through the wooden letters it comes with to fill in the correct letters to spell the word.  She loved all of her gifts.

After that, we just had a lazy day at home, and she went down for quiet time in the afternoon while I worked.  When she got up, we had a programmed call through Nick Jr. to have the Bubble Guppies call her to wish her a happy birthday.  I wasn't sure how it worked, so as soon as I answered I scrambled to put it on speaker so she could hear it, and the first minute is just an automated thing saying to bring your child to the phone and if they're not ready yet to push a button.  I wish I had known that so she didn't hear all that.  Oh well, she was still pretty excited to hear Molly and Gil wish her a happy birthday.  That was the first show she ever loved.  I remember her sitting in her bouncer when she was a few months old and she'd be playing and bouncing, and then Bubble Guppies would come on and she'd stop what she was doing and just watch it. 

Once she was old enough to sit up on her own, I can remember it would come on while she was napping, so I would DVR it.  So whenever I brought up the DVR menu, she knew that meant it was coming on...when the music started she'd get a big smile on her face and clap. 

After dinner, we had some cupcakes and she blew out her candles.  They were pretty good for just being ones I got last minute from the grocery store.  It was a good day.  She went to her annual well-child visit yesterday.  I don't know, I normally love her doctor, but this visit was just weird.  Before the doctor came in, a male medical student came in and said he had some questions for us.  Emily is very shy, especially around men she doesn't know.  She does much better with female strangers.  I am not sure why that is....she is very close to her Baba (my dad) and of course she has her daddy...unlike maybe a child who doesn't have a father-figure or any male relatives that they spend time with.  Anyway, she wouldn't answer any of his questions, and anytime he tried to ask her some, she would scrunch her eyes closed tight and scrunch up her body and scoot closer and closer to me.

I'd say that's fairly normal for a young child to not be very comfortable with someone she's never met before, and I know med students have to start somewhere, but I was a bit annoyed by him.  I don't know how it works...since he is interning or doing a practicum or whatever it's called, in a pediatrician's office, does that necessarily mean he is going to school to be a pediatrician?  I don't know, maybe they have to do so much time in many different fields, so maybe he's not really good with kids...or maybe he just chose the wrong field, thinking it would be easy, or maybe it was his first day in the office.  Who knows, but I could tell he was not comfortable at all, and her shyness of him made him uncomfortable and therefore didn't seem super professional.  Like, he asked if he could ask me some questions, and then he said well....is it ok if I ask the kid the questions.  The kid?  Call me a stickler, but that just isn't really how a doctor, med student or not, should talk.  Maybe I am being too hard on him, but he would fair better in his career if he could somehow force himself to fake confidence until he actually has it.

I didn't mind that he kept trying to ask her questions, but you could tell it bothered him that she wouldn't talk to him, so he kept trying to force her, and it made her want even less and less to do with him.  Like, he'd reach out and playfully try to pinch her leg, or he'd make the same face she was making and he'd say "this is what you look like when you make that face".  I don't know, it was just awkward.  I'm kind of annoyed at myself that I didn't say something like ya know, if you back off a bit and stop trying to make her like you, she might loosen up a little. 

Anyways....so he was asking me questions about her diet and her bathroom habits, what she eats and how often.  I said how up until a few weeks ago, she quite regularly barely ate anything.  I jokingly said I sometimes wondered how she even stayed alive with how little she eats.  Everything I said about it, he seemed to react like it was alarming.  He asked how long this has been going on and I said um, pretty much since she started eating solid foods, so when she was a year old.  He seemed concerned by that.  Um newsflash guy, she's a kid.  Kids don't like to eat, or most of them anyway.  She is picky, and aside from continually offering them food and making sure what she's eating is nutritious and healthy, I cannot force feed her.  As long as she does eat, and is not underweight (which she is not, she's in the 68th percentile for her weight) then stop reacting like I am neglecting my child.  I know I know, I'm probably reading too far into it, most of his reaction was probably just due to inexperience and not knowing much about kids, but still, it annoyed me.

So when the doctor finally came in, he came back in with her.  Since he was there too, Emily wouldn't talk to her doctor either.  Not that she's really familiar with her doctor either....she's an exceptionally healthy child, she doesn't get sick much (knock on wood) and the last time she did even go to the doctor for an illness was in January and she didn't even get to see her regular doctor).  But still, during past visits, she's never been this shy with her.  It was because of him.  So she too asked some questions....I felt a little judgment from the both of them over the fact that she is not in daycare and we are not putting her in pre-school until this fall. 

Um, I specifically made sacrifices and chose to stay home, and then found a work from home job so that I would NOT have to put her in daycare.  Not that those who do are bad parents, not in the slightest, but her not going to daycare was not happenstance, I specifically did not want her to go to daycare.  And as far as pre-school goes, I don't think there is anything at all wrong with just one year of it once they are 4.  I think 4 is pretty young as it is to have to start the whole process of starting formal education and basically the responsibilities you'll have for the rest of your life, so I saw nothing wrong with keeping her home one final year before starting the whole rat race.  Especially since I do think she is very on target or even above average regarding some things, and since Kindergarten is now full days instead of half, I feel that it is plenty. 

When I told the med student she doesn't go to daycare or pre-school yet, he was like so she basically just hangs out at home.  Uh yeah, that's what kids do before they start school.  And it's not like I lock her in a dungeon room with no daylight and keep her away from other human beings.  She spends time with her grandparents, she plays with her cousins and neighbors and my friends' kids; over a year ago she started going to the daycare for an hour or two here and there at the gym, so she was exposed to other kids and adults without mom or dad right nearby, and since June I think it was, she's been involved in a sport of activity....first ballet, then gymnastics, now swimming.  I get that the doctor, and especially the med student don't know every facet of our life, but I felt like they assumed the opposit of daycare and preschool is sitting at home all day doing nothing.

The doctor asked if she knows her name and could say it.  I said yeah and she asked her what her name was but she wouldn't say it.  Again, I know the doctor only knows what we tell her and she observes, but Em's been saying her full name for a long time now....I would say her vocabulary is excellent and even way above her age level because I have always talked to her, even as a little baby I would just chat with her all day long so she could get exposed to a lot of words, especially because she wouldn't be in a setting with a lot of people every day.  And I don't shy away from using big words in front of her because even if she doesn't understand at the time or be able to define it, she eventually learns how to use it in a sentence.  I don't know exactly what the strict criteria is for her age, but I am pretty sure being able to pick up two pens and tell someone that these things are similar is pretty good for a 4-year-old.

The doctor asked if she can draw a circle and a stick figure.  Maybe for silly stuff as long as you know your child is developing ok, you should just fib, but I honestly don't know if she can.  She doesn't draw a lot...and if she does, I'm sorry but I am busy and I do have a job, so I cannot always examine all of the stuff she does.  When we do stuff like that, she mostly colors rather than draws, and she likes to build things like she loves playing with playdoh, and she loves imaginative play with her toys.  She also loves physical play....she loves to play outside and run and jump and climb.  I know it's important to know where she is at with her fine motor skills and to know if she CAN do something, but not every kid likes to draw, and I think there are just tons of other things she prefers to do.  I just felt like I got a weird reaction when I said I didn't know if she can do those things, and then she wouldn't do them when they asked her to.

The doctor also said something like, you might want to make sure she's prepared for her doctor's visit next time.  I felt like that statement was very judgey and condescending....well she's 4, this was not her first visit with her, and we've never ever had a med student come in before.  Maybe if they informed us ahead of time, or even asked if it was ok that he be in there, maybe my daughter would have been "prepared".  I guess in retrospect I should have asked if he could leave the room for a bit and see if she would open up to the doctor more.  But I'm still learning that not everyone is in a power position over me, just because they are doctors does not mean I have no say in anything, and she is my child and they work for me after all.  But part of me, despite my age and having a kid and all that, I still feel like a kid myself sometimes, and just go along with whatever other people say, as if a doctor has some kind of authority over me.  I think sometimes I can be too confrontational with certain people, but other times I am not confrontational enough.  And maybe I am being far too sensitive, and reading way too far into this and making this into a bigger deal than it was.  Maybe they don't think anything is wrong, and maybe the doctor had just had a rough day.  But still, in the past I've always left there feeling good and knowing the appt went well, whereas yesterday I left feeling kind of angry and annoyed like they assumed my kid is dumb and that I'm a bad mom.

Ugh, anyway.  So I asked about the fact that she is still in pull-ups at night.  This was the one conversation that was helpful and I didn't feel bad about anything she said.  She assured me that it is actually totally normal to take up to 7 to 9 years old for a child to stop wetting at night, and it's not until age 11 that they consider medicine (not that I was thinking that route).  So, that's good to know.  I guess I just always knew kids are potty-trained around 2-4 years old and that they must be trained by the time they go to pre-school, and since most acquaintances or distant friends don't get into it, you never really hear that the night time dryness doesn't always follow day-time dryness.  Em's been day-time trained since she was a few months past two, and this past year she has done really well with drastically reducing the number of accidents she has and often tells me when she has to go, rather than waiting till I make her go....so I was worried that there was something wrong since she is still in pull-ups at night and still wakes up wet anywhere from 2-6 mornings a week.

I asked if I should keep using the pull-ups...I wasn't sure if they were hindering her progress, but she said yeah unless I want to do laundry every single day that she wakes up wet.  Haha, that's a big no.  She didn't have much advice for the fact that she will sometimes pee in her pull up once she is awake, and the fact that she won't come out of her room.  I think she said to just keep working on it, but today as I was leaving her room for quiet time, Emily said no pee, the doctor says no peeing.  And yesterday she mentioned going with Minnie pillow (she's like her woobie) to come out of her room and come wake me up if she has to go in the morning....so maybe just hearing it from the doctor will be enough to urge her to stop peeing when she's awake.  We'll see.