Excuse me, Ma'am, but is that your monkey?

Monkeys are fun to look at, when you’re outside the cage. But ohhhh... step inside and it becomes a whole different story.

I had to take my two year old to the doctor today. Wait, let me start over. I had to take my two year old to the doctor today after I woke up on 4 ½ hours of sleep intermingled with bouts of crying, completed the morning rush to get the big kid to school, brought the little one back home for breakfast, made several phone calls and text messages to gather information, cleaned the kitchen, did two loads of laundry, put on my world champion wrestler hat just to get one toddler and four boxes to the post office, drove back to school to retrieve the big kid as it was a half day of school, drove home once again to give the baby a nap, ran around aware of just how long that nap would last - washing my hair, packing bags for our 40 minute trek to the doctor, stopping briefly for nourishment and then with freshly diapered toddler, hopped in the car, dreading the 40 minutes of bickering, crying and question-asking that would surely keep me from hearing a single line of any song on the radio.

So, when I say I took my two year old to the doctor today, what I mean is, at the end of an already long day. I understand that my pediatrician’s office is busy, and I understand they can’t just bump other people from their appointments for those children like mine, who are suddenly and unexpectedly in need of care, but you’d think that if they can’t set aside an hour in the morning for those who call in needing appointments after being up all night with a sick child, that they’d at least offer free Margueritas to the mothers of two year olds who are coming in for appointments at 5:00 in the evening.

I will admit that since it was nearly “closing time”, I didn’t expect a crowd or a long wait once we arrived. I was sorely mistaken. The thirty minute wait that ensued seemed more like thirty days by the time we actually laid eyes on the doctor. In fact, I think he had grown a small beard by the time it was our turn.

While we waited - I mean, bounced, jumped, spun, hopped, galloped and climbed, my daughter exerted more energy in thirty minutes than I’ve exerted in the last thirty years.

She didn’t stay in one place for two seconds. She’d throw her whole upper body over a chair and pull with all her might just to climb up on the chair, and then, satisfied that she’d conquered it, she’d slide right back down. She’d go to the next chair and start the whole process over again. Just when I’d think she was going to continue down the row of chairs, she’d see something else and dart off. She’d touch the bead roller coaster toy long enough to leave a fingerprint, but not actually change the position of a bead, run to the thermal image frame and press to make her handprint, run up to someone and stare at them until they acknowledged her, ask for a snack, sit down and eat two bites and then say “done!”, climb another chair, then much to my dismay, actually play with the other bead toy in the sick waiting area, go over to an infant carrier and touch a little baby’s head or hands, stand on her tippy toes to see into the fish aquarium, find another chair to climb, spin the puzzle blocks on the wall super fast, run the length of the room, pause to watch people mysteriously disappear through the doctors’ office doors, try to take a toy away from a baby, climb another chair and try to reach a rack of coat hangers, ask for a magazine, then turn one page and toss it aside, jump up, spin in circles, dizzily climb another chair, and thoroughly exhaust her mother!

In between all this, my seven year old, who otherwise sat dazed at the sheer unending movement of his sister, not just once but twice, announced that he had to use the restroom, which is outside the waiting room, you know, in that black vacuum of space where you will most definitely miss your name being called the minute you step away, because life is just that unkind.

And yet, you can’t fault a kid for having a basic human need, which by the way, you spent five months in potty training Hell, just trying to get him to recognize that need before it was too late. However, the second time, and 25 more minutes into the little monkey’s frenzy, he got a lot less compassion and was told he’d have to hold it.

Once we were finally ushered into a doctor’s office, rather than being completely exhausted like her mother, the little one’s curiosity just had a whole new place to bloom. There were books to pick up and throw back to the pile, crinkly paper to tear, medical instruments with which to conduct experiments, and chairs on wheels - what fun!

When the doctor arrived, I braced myself for one final round of screaming since I knew he would soon be poking a light into her ears. And yet, miraculously, or I tend to think more, manipulatively, it never came. The little monkey just sat down on Mommy’s lap, smiled sweetly at the doctor as though he’d given her a bunch of bananas, and never so much as winced when he examined her. Oh sure, he confirmed my suspicions that she had an ear infection, which had prompted the overnight crying, but he failed to diagnose the more serious issue. Then again, he was at the disadvantage. He only saw one side of the split personality. And, since you can’t do a blood test for manipulative tendencies, our unsuspecting doctor sent us away with a prescription for Amoxil, no doubt confident that he had solved all my troubles.

Heaven help us, there's no off switch!

Have you ever tried to talk to a seven year old? Or maybe I should rephrase that. Have you ever listened to a seven year old? It’s a bit like a cross between an insane asylum and an action film.

If my son is, in some way restrained, such as in the car’s booster seat, or stuck in a waiting area with me, it’s like someone pushed a button and then ripped out the off switch. Except for those brief hours when he is sleeping, and I do mean brief as he’s always been the one who could go to bed late and rise early, I don’t think he has paused to take a breath in at least 6 years.

And yet, it’s not even the talking at such length that gets tiresome. I would love to have a conversation with him. But as it is, within the first eight minutes, I get the panicked feeling that squawking boxes have been strapped to my ears, playing the dialogue from Alice in Wonderland on one side and Gulliver’s Travels on the other, both of which I believe must have been written by someone on an acid trip.

I’m sure it all makes perfect sense to him. However, keeping in mind that I am usually trying to responsibly operate a very heavy moving vehicle, fill out some sort of paperwork by which I will later be judged competent, or concentrate on the amount of money I’m being charged for some service, it’s rather like trying to translate an alien language while performing mathematic or physics experiments.

I could not begin to tell you the information he has supposedly fed to me over the past 6 or so years since he began to talk, but I’m quite sure one of last week’s conversations went something like this:

“So the penguin wanted to ride on the bus, and Mrs. Riker read that part and Jordan laughed and the cyclops shot down the ship with a laser beam. The soldiers got up and marched to the landfill where the tomatoes were growing, and the lightning bolt knocked the giraffe into outer space. Then the Jedi got the light sabers and it was lunch time so we had to go down the tunnel to the penguin’s hideout, only these aliens were there and the Transformers were stomping on the snakes. But Indiana Jones couldn’t help because he’s afraid of snakes, so Wolverine put out his claws and Force pushed the Joker right out of Gotham City. Then we all sat down and had tea with the cheshire cat....” Or at least, that’s what I heard.

I’m quite certain that the part about translating a language that is not yet in existence, is in the VERY fine print of this mothering contract we supposedly signed, but nobody can ever quite produce as proof.

And yet, as much as the nonsensical chatter makes you feel a bit like putting on a straight jacket yourself and just begging for a padded room, there are moments when you’d actually prefer it to the alternative.

For you see, when my son is not restrained, it’s a whole different kind of panic that takes over. The sudden need to strap on a helmet and shin guards, and spin the toddler around in bubble wrap a few times, consumes my every thought as I simply try to move out of the way!

The mere theatrics of these conversations, I mean - monologues, are enough to have me using a cookie sheet as a shield while I secretly scan the silverware drawer for the largest spoon with which to start digging a bomb shelter.

This child is like Jackie Chan, a football running back, and a medieval swordsman riding atop a volcanic eruption. There are arms flailing and legs kicking. His head shakes around like a bobble head hanging by one coil of the spring, and his body flops to the ground with the force of a gorilla having a seizure. But then, he’s back up again, turning in circles like some sort of human funnel cloud, swinging his arms like Babe Ruth in his famous called homer, and marching around the dining room table like a pack of battery operated soldiers on rocket fuel. Without warning, he will spread his arms and fall backward as though he expects a mattress to magically materialize, but instead makes an indentation in the wood floor that we will have to explain to some future prospective buyers of this house.

It is in these moments that I wonder how much energy must be charging through his arms and legs when he is restrained. It’s no wonder that it all comes pouring out his mouth, in some sort of second grade meets Steven Spielberg and George Lucas on espressos and Halloween candy, think tank.

If I ever am fully able to piece together just what he’s talking about, I firmly believe there should be a Nobel peace prize involved, or at the very least a merit badge for endurance or successful survival in a dangerous environment.

In the meantime, I’m going to start saving up for a teenage cell phone plan with a LOT of minutes, and praying for his future wife.