First "Sick Baby" Dr visit (warning, includes some TMI)

So Dax has had a runny nose for just over a full week now. Very runny. I keep suctioning crazy amounts of mucus out of his itty bitty nostrils. Eww! Mucus! Yuck!
I've decided I dislike mucus. Mucus is even worse than poop (because, well, poop I don't have to handle... his come out fully formed and plop right into the toilet... barely even a few specks to normally wipe off his butt). Poop doesn't end up wiped on my shoulder when I pick him up. Mucus does. Yuck.

Anyhow, my sister warned me to watch his ears because when kids have runny noses they can get ear infections. Three days ago he started swiping and pulling on his left ear. Then again the next day. Then again today even more than ever before. So I called the doctor and scheduled a visit for today to see if he has an ear infection.

Went in and the nurse checked his temp (98.1) and weighed Dax. He looked ginormous on the baby scale. It was hilarious. Should've gotten a picture, seriously. He's really big and really long and was completely overhanging most of his legs off the scale with his head on the far other end of it. Plus, he instantly realized that he could kick his legs up and down to make the scale bounce and that was fun. So he kept bouncing the scale from 22 pounds to 28 pounds. We finally got him to lay still for a moment. He weighed in at a whopping 25 pounds 11oz (this was clothed, though, and normally they weigh him naked, so he technically weighs a bit less than that). Still, wow, he's huge.
He's also grown another full inch, which means he's grown more than 9 inches in less than 8 months since he was born!

The doctor came in and commented about this being his first sick baby visit and Dax is almost 8 months old, which is apparently very unusual. He checked him out, felt his neck, peeked into his ears and throat. Declared him to perfectly healthy and made a joke about this not really being a sick visit afterall.

Doctor thinks he's pulling his ear due to referred pain from teething, which also explains the horribly runny nose. I told him I really wanted to make sure he wasn't sick before I went out of town for 2 weeks.
Dr responded, "So Dad's in charge?"
I stared at him blankly, not sure what he meant.
"You'll be out of town visiting relatives, so Dad gets to watch Dax," he explained.
I was so stunned about his assumption that I didn't say anything more than, "No, Um, I'm taking Dax with me."

Really? Do mothers leave 7-month-old nursing babies with anybody when they go out of town for two weeks? That seemed unbelievable to me!

$30 for a 5 minute visit when nothing is wrong with my kid. Oh well, at least I know for sure now. Dax has a clean bill of health. And still zero teeth.