Recalcitrant!

Kara and I took the twins to their four year check up at the doctor's office Thursday morning. Jake did not want to go and told us repeatedly (when asked to put on his shoes to leave, when he was carried to the car, when he got out of the car, etc.) that he was not going. Viva made no protest.

We arrived at the clinic, checked in, and were almost immediately called into the back area. Viva was a little charmer with the nurse. She was really good about getting her weight and height measured. Jake was not as cooperative, but the process was completed with a little pleading on my part.

Next we went into the exam room. The nurse put Viva on the table and took her blood pressure and asked Kara some general questions. Then the nurse proposed that Kara and Viva go into a second exam room because the doctor was ready for Viva and I could stay in this room with her and finish the first part of Jake's exam.

We separated. Jake was pretty good about getting his blood pressure taken. The nurse asked the standard questions and then she left. A little while later I heard crying from the next room. I was surprised that they were already giving her shots, but why else would Viva be crying?

It turns out that Viva was crying because the doctor asked her to walk for him. Viva's entire doctor's exam was a bust. From the moment the doctor entered the room until he left Viva was uncooperative. She refused to let him look at her eyes (she shut them), she refused to let him look down her throat, she fought him when he put the stethoscope on her chest. She would not talk to him. When he lifted her up and put her down to watch her walk, she refused to put her feet on the floor and when she finally did, she remained glued to that spot instead of racing back to mommy like the typical preschooler.

The doctor had an intern/resident in the room with him and he told her that Viva was a textbook case of a recalcitrant preschooler. I found this choice of word vastly amusing. When Kara was eight her orthopedic specialist used that exact word to describe his interactions with her. When Kara was five the doctor wrote on her official school medical charts that she was "unusually resistant to exam". In other words--extremely uncooperative.

How did Jake handle the exam? He was golden. He talked to the doctor. He did whatever the doctor requested of him.

Neither tyke was happy about the three shots they received, but other than wimpering for fifteen minutes afterwards, they were good sports about the process. The nurse gave the shots. When Viva and I went to check on Jake and Kara, the nurse was amused at the nasty look Viva gave the doctor. She asked her, "Why are you glaring at him? I'm the one who gave you the shots."

I heard Viva tell her father that she didn't work with the doctor because "I didn't like the man." When Kara told Jake that he had done a great job at the doctor's and that he didn't have to go back until next year, he replied "shots are not cool."