going on 'cation'

We had a truly horrible pediatrician visit this morning. He was at first excited to be going to see the doctor because lately he's been pretending to be a doctor. He puts on his little stethoscope and comes in and says "I am Dr. Dennis. What's wrong, Mommy? I fix it". So he got into the waiting room, sat down at the little table and said "I am Dr. Dennis". When we FINALLY got back into an exam room 45 minutes later, he had almost reached critical meltdown. Since we were there for his flu shot, you can imagine how things escalated once the needle-bearing nurse came in. At least we were in the exam room with the fire truck exam table, the one with the fun chicken cuckoo clock, and the one with Firefighter Mickey painted on the wall (all Dennis favorites). He screamed and screamed as we held him down for a less-than-one-second injection. Much later tonight I got my own flu shot, and I regret now that I didn't take him in with me to see me get a shot, too.

I spent much of the day loading the car for our trip to Gatlinburg. Dennis happily announced repeatedly "we are going to the mountains--we going on 'cation". He couldn't wait. He wasn't overly thrilled with the six hours of driving plus stops, but his smart Mommy had filled a DVD with episodes of his favorite PBS shows, mostly episodes he hadn't seen. This kept him happy for a few hours and gave Daddy and me a little sanity break. There's only so many times you can sing the six or eight songs he sings along with us, and there's nothing to point out in the dark to talk about. Now we are here and ready to enjoy the mountains for a long weekend. He's excited that Chloe will be arriving with her parents tomorrow!