The First Doctors Appointment

First time parents should really be supervised. Here's the story of how our first pediatric doctors appointment went, a prime example of what not to do. So it's our first time out of the house as a family since coming home from the hospital, and our appointment is set for 9 am...not too early right? Haha, never let your ambition and planning go to your head when you're a newbie parent, because you can never get started too early. We set our alarm for 5 am, but I really have no idea why, the baby was waking us up every 2 hours anyway. We had his diaper bag already prepped, as well as car seat, our clothes, breakfast (fruit and yogurt), Finn's clothes, etc. Things were looking good the night before, we were ready...or so we thought. What we didn't plan for was our own ignorance. We start the morning trading off showers so one another could cuddle and sooth baby Finn. First mistake. We should have taken that time to start dressing him instead, and I'll tell you why. We, being new parents and not really experiencing the whole dressing up your kid thing or going to the doctor with baby thing yet, decide we were going to dress him up like a doll baby. Second mistake. We figured out really quickly Finn did not enjoy wearing 17 different articles of clothing, or at least the putting them on part. After significant time coercing his baby limbs into socks, shoes, onesie, pants, shirt, vest, jacket, and hat (all while he screamed bloody murder), we finally had ourselves and Finn ready to go. It was suddenly and surprisingly to us, 9 am. Great, so we're late to our first pediatric appointment...off to a great start new parents, right? It's not like he's running around the house yet and we're having to chase him to dress him or anything. Lucky for us the doctors' office is a mile or so away and I knew how to hook up the car seat (thanks hospital parking lot), so we're there by 9:10. Not too shabby, it could have been worse. Oh, but then it did get worse. As soon as we're seen, the doctor says "now undress him." I'm like "what?!!" What did we just do to ourselves? We beat ourselves up (and him) getting him dressed, now we have to undress him? Why didn't we think about that? I know why, because we have no idea what we're doing! No one ever told me don't overdress your baby for his doctor appointments. So, after another few minutes of getting Finn undressed from the 17 articles of clothes, he's weighed...and guess what? We have to put those 17 articles of clothes BACK ON. Nice, now I'm just feeling plain stupid....but wait, I can feel more stupid! As we're dressing him, the doctor notices our awkwardness and red faces (and the whole office can hear our screaming baby), so he offers to help. He starts picking through the clothes looking for Finn's blanket. Nikki and I look at each other, looked at all the garments, looked at the doctor and said "it must be in the car." Truth be told, we had unwittingly left his blanket at home. In our hast to get Finn dressed and out the door we forgot the one thing your baby should always have, especially on a winter day, his blanket. That's the day I knew our baby was in for the ride of his life, and it wasn't just us.