The Annual Visit

This year my son’s annual physical was even more excruciating than mine.

Mixed in with the questions about guns (no), cigarette smoking (no), smoke and carbon monoxide detectors (yes), we faced the following three biggies:

1) “Where do you sleep at night?

“With my brother. In my bedroom. Sometimes in Mommy’s bed. Sometimes Mommy sleeps in our room…”

Raised eyebrows. “You all sleep in the same room?” Turning to me, “Does he sleep through the night in his own bed?”

“Well, he starts out there…”

The nurse made some notes on my son’s chart.

2) “How much TV do you watch?”

My son looked blankly and unblinkingly at the nurse, akin to the way he stares at the tube.

The nurse redirected his question to me, “How many hours a day is the TV on?”

“Uhmmmm”….while I tried to calculate, I wondered if this meant TV as in cable, or did that count videos and DVDs, too…and what about other electronic media like the Gameboy?….Hmmmmm… “Probably two or three hours.”

My estimate was likely on the shy side, and yet it still sounded like a lot. I wondered if the nurse even believed me, or if he would add time to that, the same way my doctor would likely add pounds to my estimate of my weight, if the scale didn’t tell the naked truth (because I usually like to get as naked as possible before getting weighed, which is unfortunate when the scale is in the hallway outside the doctor’s office).

“I see.” Pause. Scribble.

Right about when I was beginning to question our family lifestyle and my parenting choices, came the pièce de résistance …

3) “Do you eat all the food groups?”

“I like the dessert food group the best! Cackle, snort!”

The food pyramid had been a Cub Scout activity this past year, with all the kids cutting pictures of food out of supermarket fliers to glue onto a chart for presentation at their pack meeting. The “sweets category” was a tiny triangle at the top of the pyramid, but it was so heavily populated with pictures of cake and brownie mix, ice cream, soda, boxed cookies and donuts, and candy that there was barely room for anything else on the posterboard.

“How’s his diet?” The nurse apparently gave up on getting a serious answer from my son.

“Well, that’s about the gist of it. He does eat cheese, yogurt, chicken “noggins,” fish sticks, some other kid-food like hot dogs and Spaghetti-O’s®, all manner of potato products…he doesn’t really eat too many vegetables…oh, well, carrots count, right?...but he does eat an apple just about every day and likes some other fruits, too...” I rambled.

Was it getting warm in there?

The nurse made one final notation and snapped the folder closed. “The doctor will be right in.”

Moments later, the doctor arrived, poring over my son’s chart as he walked through the door. “Do you have any concerns about your son’s vision or hearing?”

“No, not really…only his listening…” I replied in an effort to add some levity to the situation, while simultaneously praying for an expeditious end to the visit.