Dr. Hazel presiding

Last Monday was Hazel's two year checkup. She's officially 24.5 lbs and 34.5 inches, although she weighs in at 26 lbs at home. I thought I did a good job preparing her for the visit, but I guess you just can't erase the trauma of immunizations. We've been reading a book about Simon visiting the doctor, I bought her a doctor's kit, and I told her exactly what would happen while we were there. And I think we ended up talking about it too much.

She started sniffling and clinging to me as soon as we entered the room. It helped to weigh her dolly on the baby scale before taking her to the big scale. Then when the doctor came in, she started crying again, but the doctor very nicely made sure to examine the dolly first and then Hazel in the same way. It was working until we got to the flouride treatment. I had forgotten they did that, and since our tooth brushing isn't stellar, I wanted her to go ahead. So that was traumatic. It was very adorable that Hazel gave the doctor a nice hug good-bye, though, through her tears. Then the injection nurse came in, and Hazel had had enough. After the shot, intermingled with the sobs, Hazel was choking out the words, "Sticker, sticker." She remembered that she would get a sticker before we left, and she wasn't going to let them forget.

She didn't want to go get the ice cream I had promised but just wanted to "go home now." But the first thing she did upon arriving home was to open her coloring binder to the page with the lady doctor, and then she got out her doctor kit and gave her other dolly a checkup. She's still giving Daddy and I checkups every day. No more shots with checkups until age 5 now. Phew! We'll explain inanimate objects to her later, but this does remind me of that great video you sent, Grampa, of listening to inner messages with a stethoscope.