Vet Visits - Ufda!

As you know, Hannah would rather throw out a few death glares and dish out the silent treatment than shake hands with a stranger. If confronted (and by "confronted," I mean simply being glanced at, or heaven forbid ... talked to) before she has finished sizing you up, all is lost. Lips seal, eyes narrow, and her face quickly gets buried into my legs.

However, there are a few exceptions to this rule that always catch me off guard. The vet is one of these. We see this lovely man who is extremely kind and soft spoken, so much so that he not only puts Penny and Arthur at ease, but he allows Hannah to open up as well. Now it would seem like this would be a good thing. Hannah does need to practice coming out of her shell a bit more, but the number of children working against accompanying me has already doubled on such visits, and the amount of chaos has no choice but to grow exponentially right along with it.

The vet rooms are maybe 6'x6' and they all have a rather large examination table in them. By the time you add 2-3 adults, an 80-pound dog, a 14-pound cat and two (now seemingly rambunctious) little girls chattering away, it's enough to send the vet techs to the back room to take a hit off some horse tranquilizers!

The few times the vet has a chance to jump in with a question regarding the cat or dog, Hannah and Adelaide blurt out the answer and top it off with an average of 10+ stories starring Penny and Arthur as well. The vet and the technicians chuckle and remark at how lovely the girls are and how blessed I am to have such good "helpers" when it comes to taking care of our fur balls.

"With all these stories, I feel like I've known your family for years," the vet tells Hannah with a little pat to her head. Sadly, he probably does know us better than most with the amount of information that is doled out during our visits!

But by the end of our mere 10-minute visit when Hannah and Addi are STILL talking nonstop, the vet's eyes seem oddly stuck open in an alarmed sort of state, and he and the technician begin to inch their way back to the door with a baffled look on their faces. Without fail, the vet always comes back a second later and cracks the door just enough to stick his nose in and ask if we need any help getting everyone to the car. I used to think they were just being nice. But I'm pretty sure they don't ask that to everyone who walks through their doors. Perhaps they see us walking in, which I'm sure is a sight to behold. Penny on her leash lunging anyway but forward, while I'm awkwardly carrying the cat carrier that periodically lurches from one side to the other whenever Arthur decides to change his view point, and Hannah and Addi are skipping alongside me while gripping my shorts (as I don't have any hands to hold theirs while weaving through the parking lot) all the while singing a variety of songs horribly off key. I'm surprised the vet doesn't run and hide before we even make it to the door!

Perhaps I'm putting the wrong two animals in the crate!

So this year, I tried making separate appointments thinking it would be easier to control just three of them each visit. Sadly, if there was any change, it was negligible. Plus, it just meant we got to do it all over again with the cat a few weeks later.

Oh well. At least that means a second round of margaritas after the chatterboxes go down for the night! Thank goodness check-ups are just once a year!