Smell the roses

My daughter is sick today.  Thankfully, she is not flu or strep-throat sick, but a nasty cold and cough.  She has soccer team try-outs coming up, so I thought I had better find out for sure.  We did, and she is fine, but oh how fun the trip to the doctor's office was.  I had forgotten!

Since my kids are all over the age of five, gone are the days of sometimes weekly trips to the doctor's office.  I know we have all been there that have kids-the ear infections, the flu, strep-throat, and all of the other interesting things that children pick up that we have never even heard of.  Foot and mouth disease?  I thought that was something that cows got-how did my two year old get it?!  Fifths Disease-what the heck is that anyway?  When that went through the house, the doctor who checked my oldest said she wished she had had a camera, because it was one of the worst she had seen!  Eeks!!  But again, I have gotten a little off topic.

My trips to the doctor for the kids now are mostly just well check-ups, and believe me I am very thankful for the fact that they are healthy.  But today, I was reminded of the times when they were toddlers and we would sit for at least an hour in the petrie dish of the sick waiting area.  Yuck-you need a hose down from the haz-mat team when you leave.  As I sat with my quiet fourteen year-old, my heart went out to the parents who sat with fussy toddlers who seemed to want to climb all over me instead of their parents.  It was annoying at first I will admit, but I quickly remembered that it was not so long ago that that had been me.  I gave my quiet daughter a big kiss and a thank you for behaving-to which she looked at me like I had two heads.

Yes, time with teenagers is scary and difficult, but today, I was thankful for that quiet child sitting next to me-instead of having one climbing all over me, fussing because they wanted to run all over the office, or were hungry, tired, etc, etc, etc.  Even at the doctor's office, you have to take time to smell the roses.