I’ve got to stop scheduling afternoon appointments

There actually was good news yesterday at the eye doctor’s office, M can back off on some of the vision therapy exercises.  But I still wanted to cry.

K fell asleep on the way to the appointment, woke up groggy, then threw a tantrum that I’d packed the distraction toy she asked for, not the one she wanted.  Meanwhile the doctor began asking me specific questions about how M reads.  Which is as inconsistent as the jumpy line on his vision therapy results.  I’m not sure if the look I got from the doctor was because K was behaving so badly, or because I couldn’t help him make sense of M’s reading. (If I knew why M’s reading was so inconsistent, I wouldn’t have brought him in for vision therapy.).

I wanted to yell, “I got up at 4:30 this morning to change a kid’s wet sheets, I couldn’t get back to sleep, I’m a creative person with a global thinking style, no one said there would be a quiz today stop looking at me like that, I’m bad at unexpected details!”

But all I did was vow to take notes on M’s specific reading behaviors, then pull out a piece of scrap paper from my purse and try to write down the instructions for which therapies M can rotate, and which ones are vital to do daily.

The scrap of paper was a drawing I had done with K.  Apparently, the writing desecrated it.  K screamed.

Then I talked to the office manager about the bill, and our insurance switch in January.  (K had a lolly pop, so she was quiet)  Which sent me home to make phone calls to the pediatrician for a new referral, and the insurance company, all of whom made disapproving noises at me.  Feeling totally stupid, I phoned the original office manager back to ask how much money we were talking about?  Oh, only that much?  The budget can stretch for that much.  Maybe I’m not a ditz.  Maybe all those professionals are cranky mid-afternoon.

I’ve got to stop scheduling afternoon appointments.