Before our first-born genius began kindergarten, he was required to complete the obligatory kindergarten physical. I know all parents say their children are the smartest, the cutest, or the fastest, but my kids really are all of those things. At a minimum, they always seem to leave others with memorable impressions.

We had been seeing the same doctor for a few years at a small medical office in our town. He was a wonderful family physician (increasingly, a scarce commodity) with many children of his own to supplement personal experience to his clinical experience. My son Alex, the patient at this visit, is always willing to offer up bits of information I would rather he forget.  "We spent $160 at WalMart yesterday," or "I played in the huge dirty laundry pile this morning," or "My mommy didn't have time to take a shower today, but she put on a lot of deodorant." Good thing I have a couple friends in the Social Services Department.

Alex is (honestly) above average intelligence, and a little too much like his mother in many ways, probably better discussed another time. He loves reading about shipwrecks, dinosaurs, animals, and history. He told me recently (age 9) his favorite channels are Discovery and the History Channel. We really have to be careful about what he watches because he will find Star Wars Clone Wars on the Spike Channel, but when it goes to commercial he will see Extenze commercials (or Levitra/Cialis commercials)  and suddenly we have to answer questions we don't want to answer. "Mom, what's a member and why does this guy want it to be larger?"

First comes the height and weight measurement, which are both small numbers since he comes from borderline shrimpy parents. Then it's time for the eyechart. One of the nurses stands Alex on a strip of masking tape in the hallway with an eye chart at one end on a wall. Alex says to the nurse, "Why do you want me to stand all the way over here, when I can stand up close and read the letters a lot better?" The nurse couldn't think of a good response other than to start laughing. From a 6-year-old's perspective it made perfect sense, however. How dumb is that to make someone stand 10 or 20 feet away, cover an eye and try to read out loud?

The doctor then performed the physical assessment in the exam room. He listened to heart, lungs, belly, and so on. Then the doctor peeked in Alex's underwear to make sure his future "man junk" (does that make it "boy junk?") was normal. Alex was laying supine on the exam table with his hands clasped behind his head, and looked over at me while the doctor inspected his little package with eyes WIDE OPEN, but didn't say anything, until the doctor let his underwear waistband return to its normal position, then step aside to wash his hands. Alex then sat up and mouthed the words to me, "That was WEIRD!" I immediately started giggling but tried to keep quiet so the doctor would not hear me. The doctor turned around and figured out immediately what Alex was thinking, and thankfully reassured him that he was "normal." Can I get that in writing? I thought!

Lastly, a nurse came in to give Alex 4 immunizations, 2 in each thigh. Alex, always wanting to be the tough guy, said he wanted to watch the nurse give him the shots. She planned to give two at a time to get it over more quickly. So Mr. Tough Guy, sitting there in his SpongeBob SquarePants underwear, jeans pulled down to his knees, sits on his hands and says he is ready. With the first two jabs, his jaw clenched down hard, but he didn't say anything. With the second set of shots, he let his breath out (and a big groan), waited for her to cover the injection sites with band-aids, then fell over sideways on the table. He slid down off the table down to the floor like melting snow...plop...and in his best melodramatic acting effort said..."I will never...EVER...walk...again." He proceeded to army-crawl out the door after I had zipped up his pants for him. He had every nurse in the office laughing hysterically by the time we left the office. Really makes a mother proud, let me tell you.