Stay on Target!

Well, it took three weeks into a school year for Xavier to catch some kind of respiratory virus. That may be some kind of record for him.

On the bright side, so far he has been taking it pretty well. Last night, however, the quality of his cough changed to more of a painfully bronchial sound and he developed a fever, so this morning Adam bullied the receptionist at our pediatrician's into granting us a visit (they work really hard to keep you from coming in -- I think they must have more patients than they can handle.)

Of course, by the time we got to the pediatrician's, his cough had subsided for the morning and the fever from yesterday never resurfaced, so he was a livewire by the time we were called back, and the only way I could get him to settle down was to give him a pen so he could draw on the paper on the examining table.

The pediatrician on call came in a few minutes after Xavier had begun work. He started off, "So tell me what's going --" then glanced at Xavier's work, then the chart. "Wow, his artwork is really advanced for his age!"

I glanced at Xavier's work, and candidly thought that they mostly looked like scribbles to me, but I didn't say so. Instead, I launched into my status report: "Well, he has had this cough since Monday, but last night he got a fever and he sounded more bronchial, and with his asthma --"

"Does he draw a lot at home? Have an easel?"

"Umm, yeah, he draws a lot at home, no easel. Anyway, we were worried about his asthma --"

"You should really get him a sketchbook or something."

I finally managed to get him to focus more on the subject at hand -- Xavier's cough. Now, I don't mean to downplay Xavier's love of drawing -- his work is very cute, and I would need a building the size of the Louvre to store all the "art" he tries to send with me to work -- and while I would agree that he is probably ahead of his grade, I guess my expectations are tempered by the work of, say, my niece Chloe, who is a really talented painter and has been painting since she was three.

The pediatrician completed his examination (after I took my pen away from Xavier and got him to focus on the pediatrician, at least until he snagged the pediatrician's pen), and stepped back with a thoughtful look. "It's just a bad cold," he said. "Give him his asthma meds every four hours for the next couple of days." He looked at Xavier thoughtfully for a couple more minutes. "I guess we don't know anything about his biological parents?"

"No, I'm afraid not," I said, thinking, once again, how nice it would be to know more about their medical histories.

"Too bad," he said. "It would be interesting to know if they were artists, too."


Whew! As if Xavier's head wasn't big enough already!

Case in point: as we were waiting to go in for our visit, we walked around the parking lot (we were a little early), and as I noted another woman leaving with a small boy, I said, "Look, Xavier, there is another little boy seeing the doctor today, too!" As he looked up, I noted, "I guess he is a little smaller than you, though."

"Yeah," Xavier agreed. "But not as cute!"


And, one more Xavier story ... tonight, as Adam was kissing Xavier good night, Xavier asked, "Daddy, why is my nose squashed and my face round, while your face is oval and your nose is stuck up?"

Kids say the darnedest things.