After having one of those nights of being up half to most of the night worried and catering to a sick child, we left the house Wednesday morning to take one child to school and the other to the doctor's office. As we are walking out the door McKenna says, "Wait, we're going to the doctor Mom. I have to get something to draw with, remember?" She re-enters the room with a fist full of crayons and a zip lock baggie in the other. I open the baggie and place the crayons inside thinking to myself "Mommy-Score!" It's one of those few second moments of the day where you just have to commend yourself as a mommy for creating a tradition, teaching your child, or winning in some way as a parent. We parents need these scores to help offset the many times where we lose a battle, fall short and wonder how we are ever going to make it through this thing called parenting when we are still growing up in so many ways ourselves. Maybe it's just me that needs the Mommy-Scores to suffice my competitive nature and build parenting self esteem, or maybe other parents out there do the same, but call it different names. I'm not sure, but it works for me and that's good enough.
So getting back to the crayons, let me encourage you to always have a stash of crayons when you go to the doctor's office. Of course crayons are great for coloring and activity books during the endless hours in the waiting room, but the real fun begins when you get to the exam room. If and when you ever do get called from the whining of the snot, cough and germ infested Purgatory of the waiting room, let your child decorate the paper liner of the exam room table. Suddenly, you become the cool mom (or dad) for letting you child color and draw on something other than a coloring page and it keeps them entertained for the second edition of the doctor's office waiting cycle. I'm
not sure where I got this idea from, if I came up with it on my own or
stole it long ago, but we've been using it for our girls for years and
it works! I almost think the little people think they are getting to break the rules because they're sick, but we all know that the doctor's office has to throw the paper away anyway, so for us parents, it's a win, or for me a Mommy-Score.
