On Thursday last week I took the kids for their wellness visits (and physicals for our upcoming move). With two kids in the room (1Y1M and 3Y4M) it was going very smooth -- then the doctor started going over the immunizations required, which I had anticipated since it was
Dylan's 1 year wellness visit. So the doctor starts reading them off, he needed 2 shots and blood work from his toe -- the doctor then turns the page and read off two more! I told the doctor this was simple, I'm only going to do 2 shots for
Dylan today and I'll come back later. That's when the doctor replied,
"oh no, these last two aren't for Dylan". Not for
Dylan! The last time
Maddie had shots was quite a while back, in fact, I don't think she ever remembers getting any. Needless to say but I was definitely caught off guard and the entire visit ended up being 1 hour 15 minutes back in the patient room as well. Not to mention that my daughter overreacts to the smallest of boo-boos -- now with an anticipated boo-boo on its way I had to think of how to deliver the punishing blow.
Maddie had asked me numerous times if we were done yet and I simply told her that we had one more thing to do. And that thing, I told her, was a quick pinchy-shot that she needed to keep her from getting really sick -- I then reminded
Maddie of her bout with pneumonia earlier in the year, which she can recall in amazing detail. My story was not well received, but she understood this was going to happen.
Okay - first thing, I thought, was to have
Maddie go 2nd and to not be in the room as
Dylan's witness. Reason for this was simply that I knew
Maddie was going to need some extra attention after her shots and didn't want her sitting there alone while it was
Dylan's turn. So the assistants took
Maddie out to play and we took care of
Dylan's required shots -- it probably took 10 minutes for
Dylan alone, drawing blood from the toe takes forever and is not a fun procedure.
Now it was the
princess' turn. I told her to get on my lap while the doctor gives her the pinchy-shots. She reluctantly sat on my lap and was actually pretty calm considering. I don't think
Maddie realized what was coming next, but before she had time to think, shot-1 came in.
Maddie was unhappy, but she did better than I was expecting -- and before we knew it, shot-2. After this one
Maddie was crying -- but not uncontrollably and to my surprise she quickly stopped. At this point it was more of pouting and wanting to leave (not after she gets a sucker and sticker of course) -- and
Maddie clearly stated her feelings about this appointment:
"I really didn't like the last part, that was bad". All-in-all it went pretty smooth, both kids did great and the checkup results were good -- wow was it really that easy!?
Well... almost, a little bit of drama followed. There have been times during the Summer when
Maddie's knee touched concrete (no scrape, bruise, nothing) and she all of the sudden acquires a limp! Imagine the response we get with a planned boo-boo such as this one.
Maddie had been walking around just fine prior to this Oscar worthy performance (after she rediscovered her band-aid):
