Informed

Tom called me once yesterday before leaving the house to take the girls to the health department for their flu mist. He wanted to know where their immunization records were and to get their birth dates and social security numbers, just in case.

He called me three more times from the health department.

The first time he called, I answered with, “There are forms, aren’t there?”

And he muttered, “Of course there are forms.”

Tom hates forms. He hates filling out forms. He dreads filling out forms and sort of loses his mind whenever faced with a form.

The first call was to ask me how we spell Alyssa’s middle name. Which…really?

Apparently, he’d spelled it one way on the form and Alyssa, who watches everything we do, informed him he’d spelled it wrong. She then told him the correct spelling. He called me to settle the argument. Alyssa was right. I mean, she’ll be ten years old on Monday, the girls knows how to spell her own middle name. She’s also heard the story behind why we spell it the way we do several times. And for the record, we spell her name in a perfectly normal, non-made up way. It’s the way most girls with that name would spell it.

Anyway.

The second time he called was to get the date of Alyssa’s tonsillectomy. She’d already told him it was in early October, but once again, he either didn’t believe her or that wasn’t specific enough. I told him the exact date and we were all happy.

The third and final time he called to find out when both girls had last had to take a trip to Urgent Care. I didn’t have specific dates for those events but was able to narrow it down for him.

I feel for him. I don’t mind forms so I don’t exactly understand him but I do feel for his frustration. I assured him that if I could have taken the girls that day, I totally would have. I’d have filled those forms out for him. But he’s a trooper, he managed. Just as I always knew he would in the event of a form emergency.