Temporary tattoos and teddy bears named 'teddy bear'

On my pediatrics rotation I got to take care of some of the cutest kids. When I say cute, I mean cute. Some of these kids were so adorable, they put the Welches Grapefruit juice commercial kids to shame. One three year old girl had bright eyes, thick black hair and cute dimples when she smiled. When I went in to listen to her lungs, I found her carefully clutching a little Teddy Bear. She seemed shy, but also happy to interact despite being on oxygen. I tried to strike up a conversation by asking, "That's a nice Teddy Bear you have there. What is his name?" My 3 year old patient responded with a look that clearly indicated she thought I was a little bit stupid and said, "Teddy Bear." The little girl's mom smiled and said, "Yeah, we are going through a real creative period right now."

A couple days later I came in to check on this same patient. I asked my three year old patient, "How are you today?" She responded in very cute high squeaky voice: "Bedder." She was so cute I tried to go through the process of getting a picture taken with her to share (this involves a signed consent from mom as well as some other paperwork), but my patient improved so much that she was discharged the same day so I didn't get a chance to do the photo shoot.

A few weeks later I had a 4 year old patient who was very sick and hated being examined, taking her medications and getting nebulizer treatments. However, this patient absolutely loved temporary tattoos. So her parents had a very sizable selection of temporary girly tattoos (pink flowers, stars, happy animals, etc) that she could pick from after cooperating with a medical exam or treatment. It worked really well. After a couple days, I guess she started to like me because after I examined her in the morning, she asked her dad to show her the tattoo collection and picked one out just for me. (If you are wonder, yes, this was a highlight of my pediatrics rotation). I walked around the rest of the day as the proud owner of a pink flowers and stars temporary tattoo. The tattoo was cute on the peds floor, but it got some strange looks outside the hospital!

This is just a sampling of some of the cute-kid interactions I had.