What? No Sucker?

Yesterday, Austin & I made the annual trek to the doctors office for his athletic physical. For those of you with youngin's not in jr high/sr high school sports yet, let me fill you in. If your child plans to participate in any school sponsored sports, your child has to go to the doctor for a check-up to make sure they are healthy enough to participate in sports. This is one of the annual highlights of summer vacation. Oh, and most insurance companies don't pay for them.

I'm thinking band members should have to do the same thing. Seriously. Think about those poor kids carrying those big ol' tubas & drums in marching band. A 13 yr old with a hernia isn't going to help the school's image.

I can speak from experience on this because my Chelsea played the clarinet in concert band, but played drums in marching band. Not the cute little drum like the little drummer boy had. No, she had a big ol' base drum with handlebars that draped over her shoulders. This thing weighed more than she did so she had to lean back to keep from falling over. Plus, she was so tiny that you couldn't see her head over the top of the drum, and she couldn't see the majorette. She said she had to watch the drummers next to her to know when to move. Her drum was as big as the one in the picture. Well, it looked that big anyhow when strapped to her tiny 5'2" body. I was sure she'd be deformed by graduation, but thankfully that didn't happen.

Anyhow, back to the athletic physical. At the clinic my kids go to, there are so many kids needing them, that they bring in retired doctors who do nothing but perform athletic physicals all day long.

So Austin has to go into a room, strip down to his skivvies and put on a gown. He is so shy, that just doing that nearly has his face about to burn up from turning so red. He gets weighed and measured, blood pressure taken, and all that other stuff done by the nurse. Then in comes a strange man who (according to Austin from last years experience) asked dumb questions like what sports he plans to play or if we'll be going out for lunch when we're done here, all while he's pushing on Austin's lower belly checking for hernias and also checking other um "parts" in the extreme lower region. I likened it to the doctor asking what you're making for supper when you're in the middle of a pelvic exam. One word - awkward!

After that's over they have moms come in so the doctor can go over things with you, which sends Austin over the edge as soon as the doctor mentions things like "his scr*tum is intact nicely". Austin nearly breaks his neck trying to look anywhere but at me because we will both break into a fit of giggles due to Austin's extreme embarrassment of having to sit through this.

The doctor will sign a form and we will leave with the form to turn in at his first practice. Until hard times came upon us all, they used to hand out a free water bottle to each student, so now the end of the visit is anti-climactic. He didn't even get asked if he'd like a sucker or a sticker.

Austin made an announcement when we got in the Vue "Thank you God that I only have 2 more of these dumb physicals to go through and then never again".

Should I warn him that you have to have them if you do any college sports? Should I warn him that most employers require regular physicals that require you to turn your head and cough?

Nah, I think for now I'll just let him stay in his happy place.