Leah is now two months old. Developmentally, she has progressed to holding conversations with the patterns on my animal-print body pillow. Adorable as fuck, but I continue to have concern for the child's ability to engage in conversation with animated objects.
Reaching the two-month mark also means that the children of all Normal Parents get their first shots.
(I try really hard not to judge other parents, but I put on my Judging You hat when parents choose not to vaccinate their babies. Jenny McCarthy is not a doctor. Her kid is autistic and she couldn't deal, so she had to blame someone. She's an airhead, and if you make medical decisions based on her ideas, you're an airhead, too.)
But I digress.
Leah went in for her first shots. I'll be honest, I don't remember what most of them are. I trust the Medical Professionals that they are the right ones and are important and if I have a question and need to call the nifty Nurse On Call, she will know what I mean when I say, "She got her two-month shots." Because she's a nurse. And not Jenny McCarthy. I only remember that TdaP (DTaP? Pad-Thai?) is one of them, and specifically that the "P" stands for "pertussis", otherwise known as Whopping Cough, which is at the top of my Important Shit list on account of said disease is on the rise in our very county because..why?
...
Oh. That's right. Those pro-communicable disease people.
And as Leah may very well interact with some of these children at daycare, I wanted to make damn sure she got her first step toward being inocculated against their parents' stupidity.
But I digress again.
Here is a brief summary of how the visit went:
- Nurse asked me a bunch of questions. I mentioned that she (Leah, not the nurse) spits up a lot.
- Leah demonstrated this by spitting up on the exam table.
- Then she cried.
- Nurse left. Leah calmed down after being picked up and allowed to stare at the wall over my shoulder.
- Doctor came in. Poked at the baby. Pronounced her to be very strong, pretty tall and sorta skinny. All in all, "average."
- Nurse returned bearing Tray of Evil Things.
- Nurse gave a vaccine in drink form. Leah had a new Favorite Thing Ever for five seconds.
- Nurse instructed me to hold baby's hands so she could jab baby in thighs with sharp things.
- Baby turned beet red and screamed as though the world was coming to an end.
- I laughed.
Yes, I laughed. And then I bundled up my baby to take her home, and she realized she was in her Safe Place as soon as the 5-point harness was secured, and she stopped crying. It was very much like taking my cats to the vet, except that Leah didn't pee in the corner or try to knock the treats container on the floor.
My only regret in laughing at her (and spending the next five minutes telling her that her life is really not that terrible and she should calm the fuck down) is that I think she got wise to the fact that I was making fun of her. She spent the rest of the night being an absolute fusspot. So I did what any good mother would do.
I left her alone with her father for an hour while I went shopping.
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