Doctor Hannah

It's been a busy week in the Heuiser-Lynn household as both girls have been sick and we made more than our fair share of visits to the doctor's office.

Before each visit, I would spend an indefinite amount of time explaining to Hannah what the doctor would do to either her or Adelaide (whichever one was the Patient of the Day), and Hannah would watch me so intensely as I would explain what parts of her body the doctor would look at, what tools may be used and what questions she may be asked. I can only hope she'll prepare for her SATs with the same amount of diligence!

So when it was time for the actual doctor visit, Hannah sat stone still as the doctor performed her examination and she promptly and thoroughly answered each question that was asked of her.

"Well, aren't you comely," the doctor said when she had finished.

Hannah shot me a confused sort of look, but I couldn't pull the words together to explain what "comely" meant as I was confused myself. Could this really be the same child who just spent 1.5 hours fighting with me earlier that morning about whether or not she liked cheese? (As you can imagine ... it was mostly an argument with herself, as who am I to say what she likes and doesn't like!) Brick wall ... meet Hannah!

When it was clear that the doctor was getting ready to leave the room, the lack of a climax to the visit was apparent in Hannah's eyes. Clearly the doctor had forgotten something as we were only in the room for a mere 5 minutes! So, Hannah took it upon herself to fill in the blanks, and take up more of that precious doctor/patient time. Just as she was closing the door, Hannah blurted out:

"My mom says when we're sick, we need to drink lots of water because it washes out the insides of our bodies. But we don't drink soapy water - that's yucky and it could make us sick. Germs make us sick, too. We don't like germs so much."

"That's right," chuckles the doctor. "Umm ... drink lots of fluids and you'll be better in no time."

We had a similar anti-climatic end at Adelaide's visit a few days later, and Hannah rushed to remind the "negligent" doctor before he closed the door that he had forgotten to tell Adelaide to sleep a lot so she could get better.

"Oh ... yes, you're right! She does need to sleep a lot. Thank you, Hannah. Adelaide is lucky to have you looking out for her."

Hannah took a long, deep sigh and replied, "Yeah, I know."

As the doctor was closing the door, he must have flipped through the charts and noticed that Hannah had been in recently, too.

"I see that you were a little under the weather as well, Hannah," he says as he pokes his head back in the room. "You should try to get in some extra long naps, too. Goodbye now!"

The door behind him closed just in time as laser beams shot out of Hannah's eyes. But she quickly composed herself, then turned to me and said, "He's a silly doctor! He doesn't even know naps are for babies!"