Me and Emma have a day

Yes, I know the grammar sucks in the title. Thank you for pointing it out, again. Here's a little secret--I did that on purpose and if you say the phrase, "on accident" again, I will kill you.

BY accident. Unless it's your blog, of course, in that case say anything you like however you choose.

So, anyway, Emma.

Yesterday Ada had a well baby check at the clinic. I was pretty sure it was going to be a good day when Emma arrived, on account of her greeting was, "I'n going to the doctor's house!" All the way to the clinic we discussed the doctor and his "house" and worried he might not be home.

I assured her that the reason the doctor made us call first was to ensure he would be home when we got there.

To Emma, everyone who works at the clinic, including the cleaning lady, is a doctor. And so we have Dr. Kay the receptionist, Dr. Sue the nurse and Dr. Tammy, the physician's assistant. We usually don't actually see Dr. Bill the physician, so I don't think he's part of her cast of friends at the clinic.

Although one day as she sat behind the desk in the reception area playing with the pens and the computer mouse, he did ask her if she was the new receptionist and she perkily assured him she was. For all I know she might be able to do the job, she spells cat okay.

So, anyway, the doctor. We got to the clinic and the exam room and they tried to weigh Ada. Emma helped a lot. She gave everyone in the building a pair of latex gloves to wear, decorated Ada's diaper with a puppy sticker and offered to sit on the scale and hold Ada for the proceedings.

We declined that, with thanks, and she went on to measure Ada's head circumference with four or five of those adjustable headdresses they use, announcing to Sue several times that Ada was three, four or ten and advising she write that down.

We gave her a tape measure to play with after that so we could get Ada's length and she measured me a lot. I am four and ten, in case you wondered. Emma herself is three.

I took her with me to have an INR drawn so Lacey could have Ada's appointment in peace, and she was deeply interested in the whole finger poking thing, agreed with "dottor" Sue that getting poked looked fun and she likes to get poked, helped milk a drop of blood from my fingertip, read the INR machine results (guess what? My INR was three, four and ten) and then went with "dottor" Sue to get me a bandaid.

Usually I get one of those little round bandaids for my pinprick, but on this occasion I got a lovely silver holographic bandaid, chosen and applied by a three year old who told me as I was three, four or ten I would soon be, "All better."

I'm thinking of making Em my personal physician.

Meanwhile she was arranging the lab to her personal satisfaction, so we went and captured her and went back to Ada's room. Tammy was examining Ada's ears, afterward, Emma examined mine. My ears were three, four and ten, respectively. No surprises there.

Tammy found her a magnifying lens with a light and we spent twenty minutes blinding grandma by examining my eyes, which had no number value but were, apparently, Hilarious, if we are to judge by the reaction of doctor Em.

Not content with looking at my throat as I said "Ah" I also had to say the sounds for E I O U and Y. Emma is nothing if not thorough. She did want me to remove my teeth, but I declined, as that is a trick we save for at home when grandma is babysitting.

Then Emma stole the stethoscope and listened to everyone's heart, lungs, tummy and brain. Don't ask me what she heard on that last test, I'm pretty sure I don't even want to know.

You're probably wondering why I don't control her better at the doctor's aren't you? This IS me controlling her well, it is a significant improvement over how it used to be when no one could control Emma. Fortunately, it's a little clinic and they know and like her very much and are familiar with the size of her IQ. Which she is growing into--slowly. I may die before we get there. I'm pretty sure she's smarter than me.

So, anyway, then we went to the waiting area so Ada could get some shots. Em would have liked to help with that, too, but Emma and a live virus are not things you should ever combine.

The waiting area is tricky because it's less interesting. It DOES have that dandy water cooler with the disposable cups and spigots at the exact height a three year old needs to be perfectly comfortable getting water. I like to limit water to a cup or two, Emma likes to drink ten or eleven gallons and tends to think everyone waiting to see the doctor should have a glass or two, hand delivered by her.

I try to distract her from the water cooler without causing atomic meltdown that will seriously disturb the sick people. So far, so good. We went to the ladies room and Em returned without her pants but she was (thankfully) wearing her underwear on her butt at the time. It took ten minutes to get her to put her jeans back on. We played with some blocks.

Emma decided to play with a toy school bus, which she hauled down near the examining rooms and weighed. It was three, four and ten. Maybe those are the lottery numbers I should play, they seem deeply significant to Em for some reason. It took awhile to get her back to the waiting area.

Lacey brought me Ada to keep so she could see the doctor herself, and kindly brought me Ada's clothes, socks and shoes so I could dress her while running herd on Emma,because obviously she thought I was bored and lonely out there and really needed something to keep me distracted from everything. Like sanity, for instance.

Ada was lodging a protest about vaccinating babies at the time and did not particularly want to get dressed, Emma had already read all the children's books and refused to read one to Ada. Which was probably okay because all the books said the same thing anyway. Whatever the picture on the page was and the words three, four or ten.

At this point, for some reason, Emma decided to be a cow and refused to communicate with any words other than "Moo" in varying tones of voice with very diverse emotional coloring. Now and then she would throw in a human word but only if I was being particularly dense. You, know, like I was as she climbed into the windowsill, removed the screens, attempted to swing from the shade cords and mooed something about the mailman that was not flattering to him at all.

The clinic is directly opposite the post office.

She also insisted that I sit in a baby chair at the table, while holding Ada. My butt is somewhat bigger than the baby chair and besides, new arrivals at the waiting room clearly did not see why I would choose to sit at the baby table with a screaming infant while a maniacal toddler poured water on the floor and attempted to lick it up with her tongue.

Then Emma decided to go sleep in her barn, which interestingly enough seemed to be located somewhere under the chairs. At least it wasn't in the records office and don't think I haven't been in there a few times because, buddy, you don't know the half of it.

And at least she wasn't discussing symptoms with everyone in the room so she could find out why they had come to play with the doctor that day, although at one point she did deign to announce that the doctor was home that day, and therefore perfectly willing to play with them.

Which I am sure relieved their minds considerably. Ada, meanwhile was still not completely convinced vaccinations were either necessary or desirable and was considering making a powerful statement on the subject if there were not some walking and singing developing soon.

But Lacey came out just then and rescued me. I don't know what Emma did when she got home, but I had a nice, long nap. It was three, four or ten hours long, I'm not entirely sure.