doctors

my life is filled with doctors.

as a nurse, i work with them everyday. as a parent--especially of an infant--i see them regularly.  you'd think i'd be used to them by now.

today we went to the pediatrician for eli's 4 month check up and sariah's 3-year check up. the experience was not quite...satisfactory.

i have been with this same pediatrician for 7 years now. i picked him before calah was born, and he is the only one we've ever been to. i had been quite happy with him up until last fall.  last year, he gave me such a hard time about not wanting the flu shot, i would have switched to someone else...if i had known of anyone better.

but, i didn't know of anyone else i could (or would) go to--working in the hospital and the doctor's office gives me an inside look into the way a doctor practices, and i just wasn't crazy about any of them.   and besides, we see the pediatrician once per year, maybe twice, if anyone gets sick. we're a pretty healthy bunch.

but now, with eli, we are going every 2-3 months for well-baby visits. 

i'm finding that through out 7 years and 3 kids my views and ideas about child care and rearing have evolved and changed.  somethings have become more important, and other things (that i thought were very important) have gone to the back burner.

my doctor's advice, however, has changed little, if at all, in the last 7 years. today i got basically the same advice i've gotten two other times i took a kid for a 4 month check...with some additional chastizing for not following the advice i got at the 2 month check.

i never leave his office feeling like a good mom, no matter what i do. i'm always doing something wrong...non compliant with the vaccine schedule, no flu shot, not feeding eli solid food in the right order...the list goes on.

i feel like i'm a pretty good mom (clearly, with some room for improvement) and my kids are pretty normal and healthy (despite my non-compliance).  does it really matter that i didn't wait 3 days inbetween giving carrots and peas? or that i gave (gasp!) fruits before all the veggies were introduced?

at this point, i'm not convinced it makes a difference. eli (poor kid) is the third child of a working mom. the world does not (and probably will never) revolve around him. if we eat carrots for dinner, i mush up carrots for him.  if we don't eat something appropriate for him, he gets whatever i have on hand--applesauce, banannas, avacado, etc.

i mean, i'm not a doctor, but i am a fairly experienced mom. you don't have to treat me like an idiot. and let's be honest, i'm not the kind of person who listens to advice and then follows it to the letter, no matter who is giving it. it's not a personal insult when i decide to do a different thing than what you're advising.

usually i just let it roll off my back, and go on doing my own thing. but today, the whole thing has left me with a vague sense of dissatisfaction.

Comments

[caroline pilman]

I'm not a mom. But I say that you can never go wrong with avocados. Baby or grown up!!

[Jenna]

First of all Jules, you are a great mom. You can just look at your kids and see. They are all clothed and fed. Doctor's don't know everything.

It's probably a good thing that I don't go to your doctor, because nothing we did with your namesake was in the right order, and my pediatrican was fine with it. Maybe you should move down to Plainfield and come to our doctor :-) He even gave me his number when Juliana was admitted to Children's so I could call him if I didn't understand something the doctor's said.