Save me

1. My son turned ONE this past week. I thought Emma's first year flew by, but the speed of Milton's leaves her in the dust. I seriously thought I JUST had my second baby, but apparently I'm the mother of 1 1/2 toddlers*.

*Milt is so close to figuring out that walking thing. ;)

2. Emma astounds me with her growth and development. She's so smart, hilarious, observant, and happy. Her vocabulary has increased dramatically in the last 6-7 months, and, let me tell you, it is SO wonderful to be able to communicate. She still lacks clarity a lot of the time, but I'll take hard-to-understand-speech over a crying tantrum any day. Her current favorite thing to say is, "I a pinsceth!" (princess) and, "Hewwo, Bawina" (ballerina...on a toy phone).

3. On the subject of speech, we suspect that her hearing is an issue that needs to be addressed, so we were finally able to get into the audiologist her pedi referred us to for a hearing test.

That woman.

She was terrible.

She threw out a bunch of medical language I didn't understand, which made me uncomfortable. I have a pretty decent understanding of human physiology, and I consider myself super teachable, but I don't appreciate when random terminology (such as that having to do with audiology equipment and technology) is thrown around without ANY explanation whatsoever. It almost sounded like she was trying to prove that she knew what she was talking about. Like, I would hope that she does, but, it's like Mama always said: If you have to tell everyone you're a lady, then you aren't."

This here doc was trying way too hard to prove she had smarts. In my head I was basically this girl:

In other news, she was also very condescending to us, extremely disrespectful to Mr. Hottie, and terrible at engaging my uncooperative child.

I knew Emma would put up a fight (she will protect her ears to the death!), but I hoped the doctor would have enough experience and tricks to help her feel at ease. Instead, she basically kept asking her to do stuff, and when Emma was obstinate, the woman would say, "Hello?", as though she wanted to know if someone was home.

Rude.

She wanted to hear Emma speak, and so she kept asking her to repeat words. That is not how Emma does things, and it has never been. She doesn't do tricks on command. So when the doc asked me how to get her to talk, I told her we needed to find an area with toys and just play for a few minutes--listen to her while she plays.

Duh.

That's what we did, and that's what worked.

I feel like that kind of practical knowledge should be at the forefront of her clinical practice if she's going to pretend to be a pediatric audiologist.

I asked around and heard other horror stories from friends who have also taken their kids to see her.

She may be great with adults for all I know, but she's muy terrible with children.

4. I've been sick for a solid week. The kids caught it halfway through the week. We LOVE being sick.... not. Darren went to church without us this morning.

I miss him.

Come and save me.

XOXO