good checkup, annoying day

Mason had his thyroid checkup today - all is good.

Mason all of a sudden grew up. He no longer needs any help with his blood pressure check - he knows how to sit still...

He weighs 32 pounds - perfect.

He's 3' tall - perfect.

And he likes to play air guitar. : )

Here's why it was an annoying day. You don't even need to read it, I'll just feel better getting it out.

It started when I scheduled this appointment. I couldn't schedule it when I called because the doctor's books weren't open for 2012 yet. They weren't open when I called back, or when I called back (on the dates they told me to call). Then when they called me to tell me it was open, I found out my referral had expired. A few hours later when it was updated, her calendar was full through March. I needed an appt in early Jan.

Once they told me I could go to the Everett clinic (boo) I got a date set for today at 10:30, a work day. In fact, my first day back to work since Dec 23. So I went to work for 2 hours with hope to make it back in time to get Mason to school for lunch/nap (didn't happen, but let's not get ahead of ourselves). It would've been best to not go into work since the doctor is north and my office is south of our house, but I didn't want to make Andrew go to the appointment and I figured he'd be ready to head back to school and see his friends. Plus I thought it'd be nice to check in at work. I was in the car for a really long time today.

When I got to the hospital, I was excited to find a parking spot right near the front door. But then I realized it was way too small, so I followed the signs to the parking garage and found a spot. The problem was my spot was exactly on the other end of the crazy hospital. We had to go down the garage elevator, through a building, down an escalator, back outside though another building, along a pathway to another elevator until we finally arrived to the right spot. (For the record - I only had one glitch finding my car after the appointment, so that was fantastic).

Through the whole drive Mason was asking for milk. I didn't want to give him any because he needed to take his medicine and he needs to have an empty stomach. Then I thought I left the medicine at home (not a big deal, it would be on the way back to work) so I let him have some milk. Then I found the medicine. So I decided we'd just have lunch first then wait an hour and do the medicine then (making it so he couldn't go back to school because of the medicine timing and therefore I couldn't go back to work). Of course he fell asleep in the car so I had to wake him up to take it. Added bonus, I found out that I don't need to skip his medicine before these checkups anymore, so all of that wouldn't have mattered if I knew that.

Because we were at the Everett clinic (a small office inside Providence) we couldn't do the blood draw there. Luckily Group Health was fairly close, so we headed over there. But it was annoying. On our way back to the car after the blood draw a spider came down on his web and almost landed on my head. It was not even an inch from my face. A spider in January...really? So unlucky.

Another thing that Everett ruined for me was our lunch date. It's fun to wonder around U Village to find somewhere to eat, not so fun to wonder around downtown Everett. I decided to go to McDonalds to keep it fast and cheap since I was crabby anyway. I messed up here and all of a sudden forgot my own rule - always order chicken nuggets when you're trying to be healthy(er)! I ordered cheeseburgers and almost doubled my points. Not cool when you're in a weight loss competition.

Mason did a great job with his blood draw, but because he has a lot more words now, he kept saying how it hurt. : ( So I thought it'd be fun to treat the boys to a chocolate milkshake at McDonalds - for Mason to cheer up and for Andrew because I was worried he'd be sad that Mason was gone all day. The annoying thing here was that they don't have the regular milkshakes that I was expecting. They were expensive and McCafe style with whip cream and a cherry! Dumb.

Wow, it was worse than I thought. : ) But, the good checkup is what matters, so it's time to stop complaining now.