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First Day at Lakewood Pres!

Tucker is in the "Pound Puppies" this year which is technically PK4, but it is almost all young 5s and a few 4s turning 5 in the next two months. Just as Tucker has been since he started going to school at age 2, he did not even want me to walk him in on the first day so we did the car pool line and he was fine!

On a side note: It should be illegal to start school after Labor Day. Now that I have survived Summer 2010 it already doesn't seem that bad, but it was such a long summer for a boy who needs a lot more stimulation than I can provide!! I know I'll be so pumped when my kids are older and we can spend days at the pool, etc, but we just aren't there yet with Mac and another baby on the way.

As mentioned earlier, we have been playing a lot of doctor around here!! The combination of Kyle starting the new job and Tucker having to do the stitches/shot at his 5 year appointment has led to Tucker giving all of us (and all his stuffed animals) shots all day long. He rips a small square of a wipe as his alcohol swab to clean the area and then pokes us with the sharpest thing he can get away with while telling us "You are just going to feel a pinch." His teacher told me he has already given both of them physicals and is starting on his classmates and "Big Joe," the large dog mascot of the "Pound Puppies."

Injuries

Our calm child, Tucker, has had quite a summer. I'm trying to decide whether to document/blog about it or completely try to block it out!! First... the broken arm. Then, just as we received the urgent care and Wolfson Childrens Hospital bills, he got stitches after a minor fall on the pool deck led to a gaping cut.

The broken arm was a breeze compared to the stitches and his 5 year doctor's appointment today. Tuck likes to know what is coming and getting the stitches was traumatic because he didn't know what to expect and he was totally panicked through the whole process. He had to be held down with a blanket and a very strong male nurse holding his head and it was terrible. The stitches needed to be in for exactly 5 days and that landed on the day we already had a regular appointment set up for his 5 year visit. So... I didn't have to tell him there was an annual visit (he has been dreading this since his 4 year visit because of S-H-O-T-S) and he was really excited to get his stitches out, so I thought we were doing just fine.

WRONG. They took his weight and height and did the eye test and he mentioned to me "This is taking longer than I was expecting if we're just getting my stitches out." By the time she took his blood pressure, it was high. She retook it and it was higher. I whispered to her that he is probably anticipating he might get a shot. But that was the nurse I told and when the doctor finished her part of the exam and loudly proclaimed that all he had left was getting the stitches out and two shots the chaos set in! She is not our regular doctor and not one of the more sensitive doctors, so when I told her it was going to be bad SHE DID NOT BELIEVE ME. Kyle was going to come with me but he had a meeting at 11 - the exact time of the appointment. So they come in to take the stitches out and ask him to lay down and he freaks out -- we're trying to hold him down - trying to talk about the lego set we are going to pick out at Target after we get through this - he is sweating and yelling and thrashing -- and with four of us she can't get close to getting steady enough to get these stitches out. I pull the nurse aside and whisper-mention that we might as well sneak attack with the shot or that is going to be worse. She can't leave because we're trying to get this stitch.

We finally have to take a break because it is NOT happening... and low-and-behold Kyle comes flying in to the office. By divine providence (God loves me so much!) his guy didn't show up for the meeting and he headed toward the doctor's office with a sinking feeling it was bad over there. He got Tucker relatively calmed down to do the stitches while the nurse went and got the shot ready (we decided against the other "elective" shot. Ha!) and she got the shot done while Kyle held him down up top and talked calmly to him. He did freak a little and ask "what is going on down there?!" but overall, the shot went easily. Once he had the shot he calmed down for the stitches. This whole thing took FOREVER. Why can't he be rational??? He just can't.

There were some moments of hilarity in the last few weeks with all these events. For one, last night Tucker told Kyle about getting the original cast on at urgent care back in June. He explained how the first lady "didn't have any idea what she was doing" and cut everything wrong and had to go get the second nurse. He told him "there was all kinds of drama going on." Ha!

And today on our way to Target he was reflecting on his visit today and told me - in all seriousness - "That doctor's visit was brutal."

I couldn't agree more.