Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

I lied today. Well, not outloud, but I did just nod along while our new pediatrician spouted off the lists of rules and guidelines for each of my children. Each sentence began with, "of course you are...". Well, of course. What kind of horrible mother would I be if I wasn't adhering to every single guideline the AAP has put in place? Of course Nathan watches no more than two hours of TV a day. Of course. And Hannah she watches none, because she is zero years old and everyone knows you should only watch the number of hours of TV corresponding to your age per day. In that case I can watch TV every second of the day because I'm 29. I also have 5 hours every day that carry over so I've been donating my extra hours to my children. I'm such a good mother!
Of course Nathan and Hannah both have 10-11 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. WHAT!? Who came up with that preposterous number? Do fruit snacks count? Do French fries? How about popsicles?
Of course Nathan can draw circles and 'X's. We taught him to play tic tac toe as soon as he turned three because we know how very important it is to have that skill in life. We also check to be sure that he jumps in place daily.
Of course Hannah claps her hands and waves "bye-bye". (That was mostly true) She doesn't clap daily, but perhaps we aren't all that entertaining.
Then came the part where I told the truth, outloud. Yes, Nathan drinks milk. A lot of milk. I actually disclosed the amount of milk he drinks and she balked. Yes, I do realize he might eat more food if he wasn't filling up on milk. I could hear my dad's voice in my head, "Nicci can't have her drink before her meal. She always fills up on the drink and then doesn't eat". Nathan eats when he's hungry. We don't feel he has a problem eating. Yes, he's always been on the low end of the growth chart. Actually he fell off of it once. See we used to be even worse parents! But now he's back on so we don't worry.
Yes, Hannah's still nursing. I actually don't know how many times a day because she nurses on demand and I don't count. At least she didn't find that bizarre. I got hastled a lot more about that in Texas. With Nathan I finally memorized the correct answers and just told them those.
Yes, Hannah still wakes up at night. Since you aren't there, Dr. W., I don't see how that is any concern to you. We survived Nathan, we'll survive Hannah.
How long will Hannah nurse? For the answer to that we'll need a psychic. I don't have a deadline if that is what you mean. Her brother nursed 22 months and look how he turned out...Oh wait, you don't approve of how he turned out, I forgot. Scratch that. What was the question again?
Even though it sounds like the visit was bad, I really didn't feel that way. I just smiled and nodded along keeping the sarcasm in my head for later. I watched the poor tech put the blood pressure cuff on Nathan's arm backwards three times muttering that she didn't understand why the velcro wouldn't stick. I could read the words, "This side towards limb" on the part of the cuff that was facing out, but I didn't say anything. I didn't want to embarrass her and it wasn't like she was hurting him. She finally got it right, but I have doubts that she knew how to take an accurate blood pressure. Honestly, it has been a while since I've taken one since we have machines to do that for us in the NICU. I know how annoying it is to have someone tell you your job so I just try to keep my mouth shut. Joey would totally disagree with me there. He's likely to go around Home Depot telling the guys using the lifting things to put on their seat belts. In this case no one was getting hurt and I don't think she was blatantly disobeying a rule. She just got confused. It could happen to anyone. Once when I was a new grad, I was talking to a parent in the NICU about their baby's Ballard score. (A gestational score that babies have done to compare their actual gestation to that which they appear. It is very subjective and I had heard that a lot from my mentors). Well, I got a little mixed up on the word "subjective" and I said, "It is very objective...I mean subjective...I mean..." (Turned bright red and looked to my friend Lisa for help. She was no help, by the way) Anyway, the father looked at me as if I were an idiot and said, "Well, which is it? Those two words mean completely different things!" I'm sure his confidence in me as a caregiver for his child was gone at that moment. I could give countless other examples when I did something silly because I was nervous or just really didn't know yet, but the point is it could happen to anyone.
The nurse who gave them their shots and took Hannah's blood for an iron check did a pretty good job. The best part was, no tears from either one! I was prepared for a disaster after Nathan figured out what was going on, but no. They did great. Nathan was excited to get his height and weight checked because he is "really, really big now". He weighs 28 1/2 pounds. When I heard he has to be in a car seat until 40 lbs, I started to laugh. Looks like he might ride in a car seat to kindergarten. I can't remember his height. We'll have to measure him on his wall chart tonight. Hannah is 17 lbs 14 ounces. To be fair, she emptied her tummy immediately before she was weighed.
I wanted to ask our new pediatrician if she has any children. My guess would be, no. But I could be wrong. She's just doing her job. Making sure she lets us know all of the rules so that we take good care of our kids and if we don't, it won't be her fault. It is sad to me that a pediatrician can't tell us moms, "Follow your instincts. You're the mom. You know your kids better than I do". I'd like to be a doctor about 100 years ago (except for the part about most of the diseases not being eradicated yet) and go from house to house making people feel better about the choices they have made as parents and comforting with hugs and kisses. Of course, then I wouldn't have to worry about how much TV my patients were watching either...