Doctor-Day Delirium

Last night, we started everything early. I know it may seem a bit over done in theory, but I knew that my eldest had his second appointment with the um, uh, doctor? clinic? people who are the gate-keepers of the doctor that we were referred to see about three months ago by our pediatrician.

This doctor is supposed to be evaluating my eldest to see if the ADHD diagnosis is correct and if there are further problems to treat or if we just need to try a new medicine. We still haven't seen that doctor yet.

Anyways, in anticipation of the very early 8a.m. appointment, my husband and I were determined to be ready to go and on time. Unfortunately, my babies had other ideas. I actually had their dinner ready and was serving it just before the Good-Night-Night song played on noggin which is something I am rarely able to do.

Baby bedtime went off pretty much without a hitch, even. Husband remembered to fire up the grill early so that our dinner wouldn't be late. In spite of a few phone calls, we were able to eat before nine somehow. Then it happened.

The destitute baby wail that Vivienne has perfected to an art form started about eleven. She really did try and go back to sleep, but eventually she was in full blown crying mode and I had to go and get her before she woke up the boys. She was in a good mood overall, and seemed to still be sleepy.

Kai's radar must have kicked in and gone off, because not thirty minutes later, he was crying and it was Kai's silent cry which meant that he was either really really offended at not being woken up and taken with his sister to the living room for a midnight snack, or he was stuck in something again (usually the bed-slats.)

I sent husband in for this one, knowing that if he was truly stuck, that I would probably not be believed as to exactly what he was doing. Earlier in the evening, I had trouble trying to explain exactly how Kai had managed to get the tip of his finger stuck in a ribbon tag on his crib mirror and how he had managed to get that tag wound up and knotted to where I had to actually pick both the baby and the mirror up and take it to the bedroom and lay them both out so that I could figure out how to undo the mess.

Yes, Kai is very much like that little boy from parenthood : the little boy that has the bucket stuck on his head and is running into everything repeatedly. This time, husband came back from the nursery with a very sniffily and hiccuping Kai who had just been set free from having his finger stuck and knotted into the tag attached to "Sheep" of whom he had been innocently cuddling in his sleep. Hmm... I really hope he isn't setting a trend here!

By this time, it was almost midnight, and I was really sleepy. Every time I tried to put both babies back to bed, someone ended up in hysterics. I eventually ended up with both Kai and Vivie in the play-yard in the living room. Both would have preferred being held instead of playing.

That 8a.m. appointment was creeping closer and closer by the hour. 1a.m. came, and Kai decided that a sip of milk was just what he needed and he actually allowed me to stick him in his little bed. Vivie had decided that she wanted me to stand in the hallway and rock her. Every time I would try and sit down on the sofa, or crawl into my bed with her, she would begin to wail again.

Finally, she decided an early morning snack was necessary and had a bit of milk too. That was when I got a glimpse of something different and new in her smile... I very courageously stuck my finger into her mouth and was immediately met with a nice chomp. This confirmed my suspicion. Her molars have started coming in and the top back right one was the reason for her insomnia. It was now about 3a.m. I managed to trick her into letting me give her a bit of Tylenol (it only took 2 tries because she didn't want anything in her mouth.)

Forty-five minutes later, she finally nodded off while sitting on my knee. I tried crawling into my bed for a quick nap before it was time for me to get ready for our doctor's appointment, but she immediately started her wailing again. I managed to get her to sleep, but my husband's alarm clock went off shortly after.

I ended up putting her into her feeding chair with Cheerios's and more milk while I tried to Spackle on make-up to hopefully hide the fact that I hadn't been to sleep yet. I didn't have much hope for it though as we were supposed to be going to an office full of psychiatrists or psychologists- never have been told which it was we were actually going to see!

We actually made it to the appointment somehow. Bregon and I managed to get the car unloaded and the stroller ready to roll pretty quickly as we were a tiny bit late. As we tried to go inside for our appointment, we were met with a locked door AGAIN. Luckily, some employee drove up and had keys. She had to go and get someone to let us in the front, though because we couldn't fit through the other door with the stroller.

We waited for our name to be called to see whomever it was we were seeing today. Bregon and I took turns doling out teddy grahams and juice to the babies and playing step & fetch it with their toys for them. After about 30 minutes, we were taken back to a room and had our original application reviewed verbally with us.

They asked my 12 year old some really peculiar questions for someone who is just there to get a second opinion on his ADHD medication and to re-check his diagnosis. It's hard to expect your child to be complacent and not make comments when asked if they have ever been suicidal. For some reason, my child found that question offensive and tried to make light of it by passing it off as a silly question.

I am not sure what exactly they are looking for in going over this information with us AGAIN, but after the suicidal question came the, "Do you ever hear voices" question. I know it's not funny and that there are some people out there that really are suicidal and really do hear voices, however my ADHD symptom child isn't one of them.

I have know idea what they think about us, but it seemed Bregon was fast running out of his "Nice & polite" quotient and was trying desperately not to laugh out loud and say the first thing that had come to his 12 year old improv-trained mind. All I could think was, "Please don't let them find us both insane and commit us" over and over again.

After all, I hadn't slept the night before (explaining that the triplets were fast into molar season and that one of them had kept getting himself tied up in his tags on his toys was not going to sound very sane to these folks.) They had already asked me if I had ever had any experience with child protection (I understand that many of the people that they see really DO have these experiences, but when one is near delirium from lack of sleep for the last few days, EVERYTHING begins to seem really funny for some reason.)

The one thing that suddenly popped into my head was that they had found me to be an unfit mother over the course of the past 2 appointments and were trying to detain me long enough to have child protection come and rescue my four children from their mummy.

Lucky for us, they apparently really were only filling out yet more paperwork for me to sign and that was really all they wanted. The entire interview took about 15 minutes and at the end of it, they decided to ask if we had seen the DOCTOR yet.

It was all I could do not to ask them if they thought that they should already BE AWARES that we hadn't yet seen that rather elusive DOCTOR. Otherwise, why exactly would we be here going through their pre-screening paperwork that would open up the door for us to be approved to GET that appointment to see the DOCTOR!!!!!

No, I did not say a very big very rude, "DUH" to them, although in my delirium I probably ought to have. I don't think it would have been any worse than Bregon's having to suppress giggles over some of the questions that their screening contained. I really did want to ask them if anyone who really DID hear voices or was suicidal ever owned up to it outright during a pre-screen. The general consensus used to be that if you talked about being suicidal, then you really weren't. But then again, that was about 20 years ago and times have changed.

I hope I haven't offended anyone in the course of my ramblings of delirium this morning. It's currently about 11:30 in the morning and I have been trying to wait out two of the babies to fall asleep for their morning nap. I had such hope of catching a quick nap with them, but Kian didn't want his nap and seems to be enjoying playing with his big brubby in his play-yard right now which is awfully nice considering he tried to maul his brother Kai shortly before being put down for their nap in the first place.

We did get something accomplished this morning. We finally did manage to get that appointment to see the doctor we were originally referred to see. Unfortunately, it's not until the day before school starts. I just hope that Bregon isn't too wired when he goes back to school and doesn't drive his teachers absolutely nuts those first few days because he won't have any meds in his system yet.

We really are trying to do the right thing as suggested by his pediatrician. It just seems to me that maybe this might be going a bit too far with the peculiar questions and all. But then again, maybe its really some secret psycho-analystic way of giving my son and I something to giggle over and have more mummy-son bonding time!