Typical Day at the Doctor

How precious the typical day can be. In light of the teenager's departure on Wednesday, today's trip to the doctor was full of sentimental moments.

This morning, daughter had an appointment to flush out her ears in anticipation of her hearing aid check on Thursday. Teenager came along because he had to renew a prescription for skin stuff. So the three of us load up at 8 a.m.

We arrive at the clinic after a pleasant twenty minute drive. We patiently wait in line, then patiently wait as a pushy woman checked us in. After cutting me off the first time I tried to tell her that Teenager was there for a prescription renewal (informing me that it was a question for the doctor), she finally listened when I (a little more forcefully) told her that the Teenager needed the prescription, not the daughter.

There was this weird moment when she asked me when his birthday was. I thought, hey he's 18, he can take over from here. So I looked at him, and he answered, and then she pulled up his paperwork... but of course, I was the one who had to call the pharmacy. :-) The three of us sit down.

The nurse calls for daughter, and all three of us get up. I was kind of surprised when teenager stood up, and asked him if he wanted to go in with us. He said he didn't want to wait by himself. Well OK then. It was comical, and heart-warming, that five years later we were all still in the same doctor routine.

Except that five years later, daughter, teenager and I take up a lot more space in the waiting room then we ever used to! We get into the tiny room, and daughter sits on the bed, teenager sits with his legs stretched out, blocking any kind of walkway between the bed and his chair, I sit next to the nurse's station, and the nurse squeezes into the only open corner left in the room.

She puts drops into daughter's ears to "soften up" the wax, but as she is about to start the rinsing process daughter get a little concerned. So I quickly pull out a trick that never fails: I sing (and the nurse joins in) the Star Spangled Banner. And the Minnesota Rouser. And teenager just laughs, saying every now and then, "I wonder what people think outside this room." After one ear, daughter begins coughing and the nurse is concerned that she is getting nauseated. So she gives her a barf bag.

As she is working on the next ear, the nurse suddenly says, "I think it's going to come out in one big chunk." And then I looked in the bowl - seriously, this blacked chunk of ear wax was the size of my entire pinkie finger nail. For a minute I wondered if I would need the barf bag. Teenager kept asking me, Why do you keep looking at it? I couldn't help it - the mass of wax was so large it seemed utterly impossible it came out of her little ear. Teenager said she probably didn't need hearing aids anymore.

Then I thought, wow, it must feel so good to get that big piece of wax out, so I asked the nurse to check my ears and see if I should schedule a wax removal session. But apparently, I have no wax and simply don't hear well. Teenager thought that was funny too.

We left, after making a quick, sneaky pit-stop for teenager to measure his height (yes, he is 6'6"). As we drove home, Teenager and I had a pleasant conversation about nothing important. I was struck by the normalcy of the day. It makes me nostalgic to think about how much fun we have doing such average things.