Conversations with my daughter.

[rivka]

Alex: Why do you have to go to the doctor?

Me: Remember when I had to go to the hospital a while ago? After you've been in the hospital, your doctor usually needs to check to make sure everything is okay.

Alex: Does your tummy still hurt, Mama?

Me: No. I feel okay. But the doctor needs to check my insides to make sure everything is okay there.

Alex: But HOW are you going to take your OUTSIDES off?

Comments

[lizardling.livejournal.com]

Aww, Alex.

If I can ask, what did you say to explain the outside-inside thing to her?

[kaitiana.livejournal.com]

I absolutely LOVE it when you post conversations with Alex. Just love it. =)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I told her that I wasn't going to take my outsides off - that the doctor had special tools that let her see what was happening with my insides.

I gave the example that the doctor would want to look at my blood. She said that my blood is inside, and I agreed but explained that the doctor could use a needle to bring a little blood outside to look at. That seemed to be enough within her experience that it satsified her.

There was no way that I was going to explain what a speculum is.

[lizardling.livejournal.com]

*nod* makes sense. I haven't been around small children much if any, so I wasn't sure how one would explain in terms that wouldn't go sailing over their heads. Thank you for the additional explanation.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Oh, my, you do *so* much better with these things than some people do.

An off-hand comment my father made after having a hiatal hernia repaired left me believing that belly buttons could be unbuttoned. I was five or six before I learned - to my great relief - that wasn't the case.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Then here's one just for you:

I was trying to get her clothes off to give her a bath, and she was scampering around being difficult to undress. Then, still wearing her undershirt, she danced up to the edge of the tub.

Alex: Can I get in?

Me: Can you get in?! Are you naked?

Alex: I'm in my part-time naked.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if a stethoscope example might help.

[submarine-bells.livejournal.com]

Alex: But HOW are you going to take your OUTSIDES off?

"Well, there's this zipper that runs down the middle of my back..."

Hm. Probably best not. :-7

[saoba.livejournal.com]

I busted the hell out of my head when I was about her age. While they were rushing me to the hospital my father told me I'd probably have to have stitches.

Me: What's that?

Mom: Oh, they'll just sew the cut closed.

Cue a complete and utter freak out which lasted (at ear splitting volume) right up until the moment I saw the suture kit. At which point I said 'oh okay'.

And that was when it occurred to them that my mother had never done any hand sewing where I would have seen it but I certainly had seen the industrial sewing machines at the garment factory she worked at part time.

Go you for age appropriate explaining!

[meglimir.livejournal.com]

She really is a total joy isn't she?!! :D ... I love reading the conversations you post with her!

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Chuckle. That has my older brother's fear of the giraffe in the attic beat all hollow.

(My mom told him he couldn't play in the attic because there's a *draft*.)

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I wish Alex were my child. Sometimes I wish Rivka were my mom. :)

(Mostly, I'm just happy she lets us watch.)

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I just really and truly laughed out loud. :)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Now I feel silly for not thinking of that - my mind was running over what I was expecting the midwife to use as sources of information (pelvic exam, pathology report, blood test results, fingerstick to test anemia).

I'm pretty sure she understands that a stethoscope is for listening to a person's heart and lungs, although she may just understand that it's for "listening to your chest" or "listening to your breathing." It's another step to understand that you might figure out that something is wrong with a person's heart by listening to how it sounds.

An X-ray would have been an even better example, because we've looked at X-rays at the science museum and she understands that they're a picture of someone's bones. My blood example may have inadvertently created the notion that doctors examine all our inside parts by taking bits of them out to have a look.

...Which is pretty disturbing.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Also, what was she playing over to get used to the eye doctor last year?

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

I enjoy them too. Here's one in exchange:

My mum used to be a child minder. This meant that parents would drop off their kids before school and she would have them for the day or take/collect some from school. Our house was full of small people when I got home from my senior school and we'd play together or watch TV so quite often the kids would be reluctant to go when their parents arrived to pick them up and take them home. One day this occurred.

Mother: Hi Toni, it's time to go home now.
Toni: Awww, but I'm watching a cartoon with the others. Can't I stay?
Mother: No, you know we need to get you home for some tea and it's late already.
Toni: But I promise I'll watch it quickly!

[ailbhe]

I just gasped in horror at the child's terror.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

...well, I have to say that's a pertinent question.

(I love Alex' way of thinking.)

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

Hee. So practical, that Alex. :)

[kaitiana.livejournal.com]

ROFL. That's just precious. Kids really do say the darndest things. I can't wait until Zack gets to that point. He's really learning how to talk, but not quite that sophisticated yet. =)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I wish Rivka were my mom.

Alex would like me to let you know some of my major, major flaws as a mother:

1. Mandated hair-, face-, and handwashing. Even in the face of such valid counterarguments as, "My teachers say I'm not allowed to wash hands for just pee."

2. At most two episodes of "Little Einsteins" per day, and more commonly it's just one. Our nation's youth are suffering from a severe deficit of "Little Einsteins," and I am part of the problem.

3. If you wake up at 3am hollering that you're hungry, and you are not an infant, I will not let you come downstairs. I will not even go down to the kitchen to fix you a snack. I will tell you to go back to sleep, and I will coldheartedly go back to sleep myself.

4. No wearing cowboy boots without socks.

[redbird]

I think I could live with that. (I have a pretty cool Mom, as it happens, but you'd have to come up with more than making me wash my face to convince me you're not a great mom.)