Sometimes there’s a break from the chasing and yelling and fighting over who gets the orange plate. On delightful occasions CH gets into Big Sister mode which includes extreme patience and a spine-chilling mimicry of the things my wife and I say with the same tone and cadence. Number Two, when faced with this new personality in his big sister, is oddly compliant. If asked nicely by her, he’d wade through sewage. In fact, since he’s three and a boy, he’d probably do that unbidden. Now, the doctor will see you (preceded by twenty minutes of preparations and supply-gathering).
There was no shortage of equipment and I was required to be the parent and bring him into the examining room and make sure he lay down on the exam table for his doctoring. If nursing is a word then why not doctoring? The patient often wanted to get up and swing a stick at things, a baffling new behavior that proves he is hard-wired to be a child soldier in the Crusades. He was much more still for her than if I was doing it, when he’d be bucking and moaning like a horse caught in a barbed-wire fence. It must be the sisterly touch.
Next comes a bandaid.
But no, we’re not done! If one bandaid provides healing, surely ten will provide TEN TIMES the healing power.
Did this giant mass of bandages come off in the bath an hour later? Yes. Did Number Two try to put it back on with screams of frustration and stomping around? Of course. But the doctor was true to the Hippocratic oath and did not hit him when he was being fussy. He bonked his forehead on the ground as part of his temper tantrum, requiring more doctoring. The life of a child is not without regular calamity.
Writer, architect, father, husband.
What a nice touch she has! Perhaps she will add her career to the family medical careers line! Lucky guy to have such gentle treatment!