Day 70: Visiting relatives and home visiting doctors
Zoe did indeed sleep in this morning, by a whole 30 minutes. It was nice. She seemed no worse for wear for her lip injury, and it was looking better this morning.
Wow, "bimonthly" is ambiguous. I had my "every two month" in person co-parenting sync up lunch with Sarah today. Phew, that was a mouthful. Anyway, I had that today, and normally that would fall on a Kindergarten day, but it's school holidays. So we paid grandma and grandpa a visit, and they looked after Zoe for me so I could make the meeting.
Mum and Dad have been away on a driving holiday, so Zoe hasn't seen them for a while, and it's been even longer since we've been to their house. She really loves going to their house because it's big, with a big back yard with a swing set. There's all sorts of exciting things like grandpa's worm farm, a sand pit, a china tea set, a piano, a tricycle and remote controlled cars. Zoe basically just works her way around the house entertaining herself. It's great. I usually get to put my feet up and read the newspaper.
After I got back from my lunch meeting, we headed over to Greenslopes Private Hospital to visit my cousin, who's just had major surgery. On the way, Zoe napped in the car. I made a brief side trip to clear my post office box along the way.
Amusingly, Zoe wakes up from short naps in the car way better than at Kindergarten. I don't know if it has anything to do with the quality of sleep she's getting or what it is, but I easily woke her up and extracted her from the car when we arrived at the hospital. No meltdowns. And that's pretty typical of car naps.
I've had a discomfort in my right ear for the last couple of days, and it grew into increasing pain throughout the day today. It got to the point where, while I was driving home, that I deciding to get it looked at by a doctor, ASAP. One of my favourite things about being back in Australia is the availability of home visiting doctors.
It was actually faster and cheaper for me to get a home doctor out to look at me tonight than it was to get an appointment with my regular doctor. I wouldn't have gotten an appointment until some time tomorrow at the earliest (assuming he had appointments available), because I made the decision to see a doctor after 5pm, when they'd closed. Instead, I had a doctor at my door in a little more than 2 hours of making the request. It also worked out cheaper, because the home doctor bulk bills Medicare, whereas my regular doctor does not.
Add in the massive convenience of not having to lug a small child anywhere while I get seen by a doctor, and it's a major convenience. I love socialised healthcare.
It turned out I have an outer ear infection. So all we had to do after the doctor came was find a pharmacy that was still open after 7pm to get my ear drop prescription filled.
All of that mucking around meant that Zoe got to bed a little later than usual. It's another cool night tonight, so I'm hoping she'll sleep well and have another sleep in.