Yesterday was the much-dreaded pediatrician visit wherein Theo got his first round of shots since the ones at the hospital (which I was not present for). I remembered Sarah Marinara blogging about when her daughter Lauren got her first shots and how she felt so bad she cried that night--Sarah, not Lauren.
In our case, it was actually Theo who cried last night and yesterday afternoon, screamed is more like it, but he settled down in time to go to sleep for the night. Thank goodness, since 13 pounds of shrieking sad baby is more than I can schlep around for too long at this point in my life. My back muscles have gone the way of my abdominal muscles. Normally he is very easily placated--my mom advised me when he was teeny to always soothe him while sitting down so that I didn't get into a trap of pacing the halls, which has worked so far--but last night pretty much nothing would do.
Then once he settled himself into dreamland, I lay there in my bed and remembered how his little pink smiley face turned into a bright-red terrified face as soon as that mean nurse punched the first needle in his leg...and okay, I cried a little too at the memory of it. Even this morning when Matt took the band-aids off his legs, I braced myself. It was like flashbacks from Nam.
I know, I know, it's only the beginning.
Fortunately he's back to his happy, gurgly, drooly self this morning.
(In case you were worried he wouldn't be.)
I feel you. It never gets any better to put your child in pain "for their own good." I always tell myself that a few minutes of pain is better than a lifetime of disease, but it hurts. Even now that he is older and handles it better, I don't.
ReplyDeletePoor guy!
ReplyDeleteI love the new picture of him.
Yep, shots are a bummer. But better than diptheria, pertussis, polio etc.
ReplyDeleteTry giving theo some tylenol before you go to the doctor. He will feel better. Then keep giving it all day. This is especially helpful when you get to the shots that sting/hurt when they give them (MMR, dpt).
ReplyDeleteIt only gets worse. Try the 18 mo. shot when they're looking at you like "how can you let them do this to me?" Like a care-bear bandaid is going to do anything to that emotional scarring. I dread "well baby" checks so much um...Simon's like 6 weeks overdue for his. I know, I know, but it's tramatizing for the both of us.
ReplyDeleteWhen Brenden turned five Jeremy repeatedly told him that he would have to get shots that hurt and hurt and hurt. (Jeremy cried for over fifteen minutes afterwards although he sat real still and let them do it.) I was not looking forward to this and kept telling Jeremy to shush.
ReplyDeleteWhen the day came I told Brenden as we were heading into the building that he would get shots and they probably would hurt, but only for a little bit.
He sat there, Anna watching faithfully, and just watched the nurse do it. No whimper. No noise. No initial jump or flinch.
I was so proud of him. And it was much easier on my heart. And he gloated to Jeremy that he didn't cry at all. (Jeremy had his shots before he turned five for some reason, and hence was younger.)
dude whatever. i just had to get a DTP booster and my arm hurts for literally days. if anyone even brushed my arm i wanted to burst out in tears. shots suck. i feel your pain theo
ReplyDeleteEliza how do you get the pictures of Theo to show side by side? I've tried and can't seem to make it happen.
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is it isn't just one poke. It's like 2 or 4 depending on how many nurses are there. I feel the pain though. With my last delivery I had a total of 10 Rhogham shots within a 24 hour period. I was sore.
ReplyDeleteyes shots are a bummer - but i agree with karen.
ReplyDelete(1) When Bonny was almost 5 and going for her shots, Scott and Karen were there with their mom and Scott really terrified Bonny about the upcoming ordeal. She was so tense, they really were quite painful.
ReplyDelete(2) Another time, Harry F. was going for a penicilin shot, and I told him if he was brave and didn't cry, I'd get him a treat afterwards. He was 3 or 4. He didn't cry, but instead started to go into anaphylactic shock, so they raced in with the longest needle I've ever seen to counteract the reaction he was having. Harry said, "But I already had my shot!" We had to have a really big treat after that!
(3) When my kids went to have their regular baby shots, they would come home and sleep the day away - apparently that gene hasn't been handed down!
He slept most of the day afterward (after some initial sad crying) but then was really sad starting in late afternoon until around 9. But I'm not sure if he would have slept on his own or if he just slept because I was running a bunch of errands and he was either in his car seat in the shopping cart or in the Baby Bjorn all day.
ReplyDeleteTraci, to get the pictures to go side by side, I load them using Blogger and then mess around a little bit with the HTML. If you go to the "Edit HTML" view (rather than compose) you'll see what I mean. If I wanted to do 2 pictures next to each other, I would load one to the left and one to the right, then go into the HTML and change the words "float:left" to "align:left" (and "float:right" to "align:right"). If you want to do 3 next to each other, then load one in the center and make sure it says "align:center." Also, make sure that the pictures are loaded in the opposite order that you want them from left to right--i.e., load the right one first, then the left one. Or the right one, center one, left one.
If you don't want margins in between, then erase the margin code. I don't remember exactly what that is but it starts with "margin:" and then has a couple of little things after like 0 pt or 1 pt.
Kind of a clunky way to do it, but I'm not sure how else to, and it doesn't take long.
If that still doesn't work then let me know.
LOVE the little HTML lesson - I'll have to try it!
ReplyDeleteAnd I SO SO SO remember scott teasing me about my shots - and we went to the zoo afterwards - and I was so miserable.
oh well.
Amy K- 10 rhogham shots? Yuck. And I'm curious why so many. (I get rhogham too, but never so many in so short a time!)
ReplyDeleteI too am a rhogham shot girl. Karen, I had the same ? for Amy K, which is weird because I am a Amy K, but I guess not here in blog land.
ReplyDeleteAlso I forgot to mention that when you go into the code and adjust the pictures, you also need to delete the space between each picture's code in order for the photos to show side by side. In other words, go to the [/a], which is the very end of the picture's code, and delete so that the [/a] of that picture's code is right next to the [a] or beginning of the next picture's code.
ReplyDelete(The [ ] are actually < > but Blogger won't let me post incomplete code.)
Also, about the centered pictures, instead of "float:center" it says "display:block." Replace "display:block" with "align:center."