PANDEMONIUM AT THE PEDIATRICIAN

After being freaked out by the school nurse today who called me at the office to tell me that my daughter had some weird bug bite that seemed to be growing in size, I had a feeling it was going to be an early day. Sure enough, at 3:15 pm, my babysitter called to tell me the welt on her leg was growing bigger by the minute and I had to race home to take her to the doctor. Obviously pretty concerned, I grabbed my coat and bag and raced to catch the 4pm train home...of course missing two conference calls, but such is life when your kid develops a freaky skin rash.

On the way home, I thought about an email I read yesterday about some kid who was playing in the ball pit at McDonald's, told his mom his tush was hurting and then went into convulsions and it turned out he had been pricked by a needle that had heroin in it and unfortunately, according to the email - which I honestly didn't know if it was true - the child didn't make it. Not a good time for my own daughter to come down with a mysterious bug bite issue in light of that horrifying read.

The moment I got home, I inspected my daughter's leg and it looked pretty red so I figured it was still a good idea to take her the doctor to make sure it was nothing. So we raced off to the pediatrician at 5:30 pm and when we arrived, it was a madhouse.

Kids, babies and toddlers were crying incessantly. Screaming at the top of their lungs. Wailing for their mommies. The more a kid screamed, the more the others cried louder. Meanwhile, my kids, who got into a mini brawl at the abacus, decided to grab a front row seat and watch the mayhem unfold around us. One boy was running for dear life trying to avoid getting his flu shot, a nurse attempted to hold onto a baby who was crying out for her mom while she was busy holding on to her other kid who was getting immunized. Then, a little girl smacked that mom after having to endure a shot too! Holy cow - the place was a disaster area! And that poor woman with the four kids was in desperate need of a tequila shot herself!

They finally called my daughter's name and we went inside - of course she did have some kind of weird infected bug bite - not poisonous of course, but the doctor did prescribe some antibiotics, skin creme and benadryl just to be on the safe side. Now that she's falling asleep from all those antihisthamines and I'm enjoying the peace and quiet of my home office, today's meltdown at the pediatrician made me realize one thing. Taking a bunch of kids to the doctors' office is no picnic at the park.