Is doctor-kicking an Olympic sport yet?

You know the movie currently in theatres – Awake – about a man who is conscious during his surgery and hears that his doctors have a diabolical plot to murder him?

I’m thinking Graham snuck out to see that movie when I wasn’t paying attention.

How else to explain a doctor’s visit today that made this one seem like a veritable love-in? The boy obviously has a deep-seated mistrust (okay hatred) of doctors and I am starting to worry it may affect him being awarded that full scholarship to Harvard Medical School on which I’m counting.

But I digress.

Today was the day Graham saw an orthopedic specialist on account of his tendency to turn his toes inwards when he walks. Pigeon-toed he is and not just a little bit – a fact that endears him to me all the more (if that’s possible) but also makes me fret about his future as a potential target of playground bullies.

Well, after much (so, so much) screaming and crying and kicking the doctor in the head I was advised that his hips have a tendency to turn inwards (and therefore his legs and toes) and there is nothing we can do about it.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Okay, well, we can try and get him out of the habit of resting on his knees with his legs splayed out behind him (which I’m sad about because that pose is so very, very cute). And we can get him into skating and/ or skiing at an early age to help train him to keep his legs straight.

Also we can nag him about keeping his legs straight when he gets old enough for that kind of thing to be effective (exactly how old is that again?).

But there are no special shoes or exercises that will make a bit of difference apparently, so we are stuck hoping he’ll grow out of it and nagging him if he doesn’t.

And putting him in ski school. This, at least, is good news. Rob and I are avid skiers and we were wondering if this winter was too early to put Graham on skis.

Guess not.

Looks like Graham is going to get an early start on the slopes. And that’s a good thing – maybe an Olympic gold medal in skiing will cancel out a history of doctor-bashing on his Harvard med school application.

Fear and loathing

While I lamented the endless screaming that accompanied Graham’s trip to the doctor earlier this week, I neglected to mention one rather important outcome of the visit.

Graham has an appointment with a pediatric orthopedic specialist next month.

He has an appointment because he is pigeon-toed and by that I mean that his toes point in, causing his legs to flail out like little windmills when he walks and especially when he runs. And while that is a relatively common condition among two-year-olds, the doctor agreed that further scrutiny would be wise given that it is quite severe in his case.

He might grow out of it, but it’s best to get it looked at and see if it can be corrected before he gets older, she said. You don’t want other kids making fun of him.

Her words stopped me cold.

Making fun of him. Other kids. Making fun of my Graham.

It is terrifying, this thought that anyone could possibly reject the gifts my precious child offers. That anyone could diminish him just for being so wonderfully, uniquely himself.

Years ago a co-worker talked to me of his two teenage daughters. They are identical twins, but one was more outgoing and was thus considered prettier and more popular by their peers. They had come home from a dance in tears, he said, after the extroverted one informed her quieter sister that the young man she last danced with had made gagging faces behind her back to the amusement of the other kids.

I’d like to **@$#** kill that kid, he said. I’d like to rip his *%#@** face off.

I remember being surprised by his vehemence, by the rage in his face. But now that I’m a parent I understand it completely.

We will send our children out into the world and the world will sometimes be unkind – it is ever thus. But still, the idea that the apple of your eye, the heart of your heart, will be rejected or humiliated even, and that you are powerless to stop it, is sometimes too much to bear.

I imagine my Graham, running joyously out into the world with his dear, little legs flapping like windmills. I imagine his peers laughing and him stopping short, blinking in surprise to have been met with ridicule and derision.

And just the mere imagining of it produces a frustrated, impotent rage that gnaws at my chest like a demon possessed.

But in addition to my rage there is fear.

There is fear because despite having endured this and this, I’m afraid that the very hardest part of parenting still lies ahead.