Poor Dogs and Silver Bells

WARNING: Christmas Candy Canes may bring blue tongued Reindeer to your house too.

But seriously...the dentist would be appalled.

So this morning was an interesting case of the 'hurry ups' because the baby turned two months today which also means, go to the doctor for a well baby appointment in which she won't be well when we leave because it's the Dr.'s office where all the germs live. Actually we brought the germs this time. I have decided that it is much easier to have one sick child at a time as opposed to three or more. I wasn't sure a few months ago which I preferred. This was because I was dealing with one sick child at a time. It happened to be the stomach flu. I was 8 1/2 months pregnant and my husband was at work. It started with the Joey, who was the baby then, and exactly 24 hours later the next one up would get it. You could really start to tell who played with which sibling the most by the puking order. It was tedious, the same cleaning and care day after day for 6 or more days. But there was a rhythm and a set expectation.
What we have now is a cold running through the 3 littlest boys. Runny noses, eyes, coughs, breathing treatments, and the repeated phrase "Don't touch the baby!!"ARRGGHH. I believe one at a time is better.
So baby Ellie is well... so far. she's 50% in height and weight and she's developing fine. Great news. And she only screamed for a minute during her vaccines. Her brothers on the other hand...
Picture this... It's just me taking all these kids to this appointment. That's a 4 1/2, 2 1/2, 1 1/2 and 2 month old. The oldest can walk and be fairly obedient, no problem. It's the other two. So I strap them in the new double stroller(my husband backed the suburban over the old one) and put the baby in the snugglie carrier. As I walk into the Dr. office waiting room, the other parents start counting. Then one mother, with 3 kids, says "Wow four, what are their ages?" after I tell her I add "and there are three more in school." Hers and everybody else's ear's perk up. She then said " This must be a calm day the for you." and I thought 'that's just because they're contained'. But, I smiled and said that the older kids really do help.
So we got into the room to wait for our very nice doctor, and our not so nice nurse(we haven't had her before) said that we were a little late for the appointment so we may have to wait for the doctor a little. This was during the time when Jacob(2) had already gotten out of the stroller and was climbing on everything, reading all the letters he could find(he's scary smart), and playing in the trash. I was trying to re-diaper the baby who peed an ounce on the scale. The nurse was trying to convince Jacob that chairs were for bottoms not feet. I am more of a 'catch them if they fall' kind of person, as long as no one is screaming. But I let her try to tame the beast. Then Joey stood up in the stroller and Jacob started kicking the table. Caleb just sat in a chair coughing and snotting. The natives were getting restless. No one fell and the nurse ran away quickly. The Dr. came in almost as soon as the nurse left, did Ellie's exam, talked a bit. Then Nurse Chimney came in. We like Nurse Chimney, the only thing is that she smokes. Jason named her that after commenting that she smells... well like a chimney. She gave Ellie her shots...Other than the baby's scream, it was silent. The boys stared and you could see the thoughts on their faces "Holy Crap is she gonna do that to me?" When it was over it was back to normal. Everyone was contained in their appropriate places and we were out to the checkout desk. The boys each picked a sticker. Except Jacob who wanted a Spiderman sticker, not Superman. The kind woman at the desk went searching for one. Jacob got his Spiderman sticker.and then realized that he wanted Superman after all. We were out the door and the mother fit of all time ensued. I've seen some good ones but this rivaled the best. It involved the screaming range of some of the best soprano's and as he got hoarse in one spot the pitch would get higher and higher until I'm sure somewhere some poor dog was covering its ears. All I can say is thank goodness for large cars with car seats buckled way in the back, and Elvis singing Silver Bells on the radio...really, really loud.
Good day to ya.