Flea's had some ongoing minor health concerns these past few months.
Yesterday was a long-awaited appointment with the paediatric consultant, and I was (to be honest) a bag of nerves. I always imagine in such situations that the consultant is clearly going to note that my child is malnourished, mentally scarred or otherwise damaged by my attempts at parenting, and I'm going to get 'told off'.
Of course, this being the NHS, there was a long wait for our appointment and Flea had read her school book in the first five minutes and needed to entertain herself.
So she did.
She found a copy of Lancashire Life magazine, opened it up to the food pages, carefully placed the magazine on the floor and announced, "I am a dog and I am going to eat my treats now, and then you have to tell me to stop eating treats or I will get poorly."
Then she crawled under the chairs and proceeded to pretend to eat from a magazine, scratch her ears and generally behave like a dog for the next 30 minutes.
I was relieved when finally the consultant popped his head round the door and called Flea's name. Or at least I was until I realised that Flea wasn't standing up. She was walking to the consulting room on all fours. And WOOFING a hello to the consultant.
The next 30 minutes was one of the longest half-hours of my life. The consultant and two student doctors watched as my daughter woofed and panted, and refused to move or comply with any request unless the consultant used the word 'paw' and 'leg' instead of 'hand' and 'arm'. While the consultant was palpating her tummy, my daughter stuck out her tongue and panted.
The good news is that Flea was judged to be "perfectly healthy and normal."
So I'm assuming that all five-year-olds do this sort of thing. Right?
