How much is medical school anyways?

Have I mentioned that our girls are scared of most movies and are frightened by any rides at Disneyland where it's dark or they play loud music? Yep, it's true. But there is one scary thing that Ro and Ree love. Seriously LOVE. It's blood. They're just obsessed with it. They like to talk about it, see it, act out elaborate surgeries involving it, ask countless questions about it, and watch medical shows and videos about it. Forget Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Little Bear, now tv-time is all about Grey's Anatomy.

If we try to sneak in an episode without telling them, they hear the music and come tearing into the room complaining up a storm and interrogating us about whether there was any blood that they missed. They want us to pause the show on any particularly gory scenes, and beg to replay them over and over again. When TubaDad had to get some blood drawn for a followup to the accident, we asked if Ro and Ree wanted to meet him at the doctor's office to witness it. They nearly knocked me over in their excitement to get to the car. Once there, Ree said she wanted to videotape it and dug my little Flip video camera out of the console and carried it in. And then, the little stinker actually did video the whole procedure. I'm guessing that lab technician hasn't ever had his every move scrutinized by four-year-olds wielding video cameras before. The video turned out pretty funny, by the way, particularly the part where she was watching the needle so intently that the camera slowly dipped down to floor without her noticing. It would probably be in poor taste to post it, right? (I'm such a terrible judge of those kinds of things. I'll just err on the side of caution here, unless someone's dying to see it.)

Then yesterday, I stopped by the drugstore to get an H1N1 shot and the technician tried to get the girls to stay on the other side of the table while she administered it. Nice try. They ducked down and wedged past her so they could hold my hand and get a good view. They know how I am about needles, so Ro squeezed my hand as hard as she could and Ree threw her arms around me and said "Be brave mama!" Then they stared intently at the needle, gleefully exclaimed that there was one drop of blood, and informed me when it was over. The lady was kind of unnerved by them, I think, but they thought it was great fun.

Tonight they played Grey's Anatomy until it was time to go to bed. They donned gloves, broke out the doctor's kits, stuffed babydolls in their pajamas, and gave each other emergency C-sections about 30 or 40 times. I think Ro was Izzie and Ree was Alex, if you watch the show. This picture cracks me up because you can see the baby poking out of Ree's pajamas as well as the fancy Easter gloves that Ro is wearing for her surgeon's gloves:



The babies were just flying all over the place. That OR room was a mess:



TubaDad and I were joking back and forth about their doctor/blood obsession the other day when he said "Yeah it's not going to be so funny when we have to pay to put two of them through medical school at the same time." And we both abruptly stopped laughing. ;-)