vaccinations

Today Emma got her one year shots.  It was quite different from the previous shots, because she was much more aware of what was going on, and she also remembers much better afterwards, making it harder for me to distract her.

We went to the Health Unit, which is just around the corner from my house, and registered.  A volunteer lady measured her weight and her height.  Emma got upset about being laid on a table to be measured like a sheep, and she started protesting, obviously oblivious to what was about to come.

We sat and waited, and she started playing with this tall toy that has wires and beads, you know the classic weird one that I thought no kids ever play with.  Well, apparently mine is very interested in that particular toy, to such an extent that when the nurse came to get us, she did not want to let go of it and hung onto the wires/bars for dear life.  I had to pry her off.  The nurse assured us that she had lots more toys in her office.  I thought to myself, sure, and some sharp needles alongside them.  In fact, I was in complete agreement with Emma, I also wanted to hang onto that toy for dear life.

But, we had to go.  Indeed, the nurses' office was full of nice toys, and soon enough Emma was talking up a storm, chatting with us, and handling every animated plastic animal and colourful item in that room.  The nurse plotted her along 97th percentile, and gave her her shots, which made her scream hysterically.  FOUR of them, to boot.  Then, she blew bubbles from a bubble gun, and that was quite effective at stopping the hysterical crying.  Apparently I also need to get a bubble gun on top of the weird toy with wires and beads.

In the waiting room, where we had to stay for 15 minutes, there was another one year old boy who had just gotten his shots, and was also crying.  Both of them sat wimpering side by side, looking at each other with snotty noses.  Then they decided to make friends, and played quite nicely with the weird wire-and-beads toy, until it fell over and both started crying loudly again.  At that point, both his mom and I decided that 15 minutes is too long to wait, allergies be damned, and we each parted on our merry ways.

Emma was cranky for the rest of the morning, but we took a 3 hour nap together and both of us recovered from the experience.  I have come to the conclusion that I should try to take the day off every time she gets her shots (I mean one more time at 18 months) as it is nice for her to have me around, and be clingy and feel safe and whiny.  This evening, I tried to tell her the story of the shots, and made whiny sounds as I was poking her shoulder with my finger, and she laughed in a sort of embarrassed way, which was so cute.  I was not laughing at her, just retelling the story, as we both needed to debrief and get over the traumatic event.  Phew.