Doctors are No Fun

We had a really tough day last week. Lin had heart surgery when she was a toddler and, while she's living a normal healthy life with no restrictions now, she does need to see a cardiologist for regular check-ups. Well, Lin is not a fan of doctors. Her opinion is, I feel fine, I don't need to see a doctor. She is also extremely modest, and the idea that maybe the cardiologist would want to see the scar from her surgery was very upsetting to her. The more she talked about it, the angrier she became.


So we get into the examination room and what do they do? Hand her a hospital gown and tell her to undress. And it got worse from there. I will spare the details to maintain her privacy, but suffice it to say, an hour and a half later I had one ANGRY girl on my hands. I tried, throughout the appointment, to hold her hand and comfort her, but she was having none of it. When she was done I tried to talk to her and tell her what the doctor had said about her heart (looks good, see you next year) but she literally shoved past me out the exam-room door. Well at that point, all of my sympathy went out the window and now I was the angry one! I don't care how upset you are, you don't act disrespectfully to your mother!


So we got out to the parking garage and I tried to stop her again to talk to her. This time she stopped, but she would not look at me and still acted extremely disrespectful to me. After giving her the "Mom-glare" for several seconds, I turned and walked to the car. On the way home I thought about what her punishment should be. How do I balance respecting her feelings of confusion, embarassment and anger, with teaching her how to appropriately behave to her mother?


Well, I didn't have to do anything, as it turns out. We stopped to pick up Ruby from daycare and Lin stayed in the car. When I got back to the car with Ruby, Lin handed me her pocket-translator, which read "I was wrong to correct Mama. I'm sorry."


Someone please pass the tissues...


I immediately burst into tears and repeatedly told her "Wo ai ni. Wo ai ni." (I love you. I love you.) She laughed at me, called me crazy, and the incident was over.

Phew!

Do I have any volunteers who would like to tell her she has a dentist appointment next week, and then a physical on Sept. 1st? ... Anyone ... ?