Bigger boy

Biscuit finally had his 5-year-old checkup today, and I'm glad it's finally over. It was sort of an ordeal from the get-go.

I called almost two months ahead of his birthday, but the first appointment I could get with his doctor was in February. Um, no.

So they said if we would settle for seeing the P.A., we could have an appointment on Dec. 11. Fine!

I'm not usually picky about these things, but we hand-picked Biscuit's doctor. We read his bio and experience. We met him and talked to him about our parenting philosophy (such as it is). We chose him.

Now if Biscuit has an ear infection or something that needs to be handled right away, I don't care which doctor he sees. But this is a once-a-year appointment. Why can't we see the doctor we want to see without having to schedule the appointment a year in advance?

Which brings me to another point, from the time we started going there, they told us that they don't schedule appointments farther than two months out. So that says to me that if I called right now, I should have an appointment in about two months, right? It didn't work that way for us.

All of this became a moot point because Jeff and I were both sick as dogs the morning of his appointment. Jeff called the office, and they rescheduled Biscuit's appointment for today with a new doctor.

So we got to Biscuit's appointment, and the first thing they did was weigh him and measure his height. Our boy weighs 38 pounds and is 41 1/2 inches tall. That's up 5.5 pounds and 2 inches from last year. And that total takes Biscuit from the 10th percentile to the 27th percentile.

You know what that means? That means that only 73 percent of kids his age are bigger than him right now instead of the 90 percent from last year.

Next, they checked his eyesight.

Biscuit had to stand on a blue shape on the floor and read an eye chart. The nurse asked him if he wanted to read letters or shapes, and he chose shapes. There was a circle, then a square, then a heart, then the outline of a house.

"Can you tell me what the shapes are as I point to them?" the nurse asked.

"Sure," Biscuit said. She pointed at each shape, and he named them. "Circle. Square, Heart. Pentagon."

The nurse laughed because I'm guessing Biscuit was supposed to say "house." 

"He's right," she said. "It does have five sides, which makes it a pentagon. I like this kid."

We answered a million questions about Biscuit, then the doctor came in.

Did I mention that Biscuit brought Puppy with him?

"Who's your friend?" the doctor asked.

"This is puppy," Biscuit said. "He has a doctor's appointment, too. He has a scrape."

"Oh, okay," the doctor said. "As soon as I ask your mom and dad these questions, I'll take a look at puppy."

The doctor started to ask us another question when Biscuit said, "Um, excuse me."

The doctor looked at him and said, "Yes?"

"You know that Puppy isn't real, right?" Biscuit said. "I just like to PRETEND that he's real. You don't really have to check him out."

The doctor laughed and said, "Well, Puppy looks very nice and very soft, so if it's okay with you, I'd like to take a look at him."

"Okay," Biscuit said, smiling at her.

She did indeed take a look at Puppy and found him in excellent health. And she found Biscuit in excellent health, too.