Sunday, January 17, 2010

To live in the moment

My son just turned 2. That's right, 2. We had a party for him, and of course he got showered with gifts. (I think between Christmas and his birthday, he was getting to the point where he expected there would be gifts every weekend.)

The next day, we took him in for his 2-year well-baby checkup. He hates the doctor. HATES. THE. DOCTOR. So I decided to wait to tell him where we were going until right before we got into the car. When I told him, he gave me a blank look and said, "OK, Mommy." I bundled him up and put him in the car, and off we went.

We pulled into the parking lot, and from the back seat I heard, "There's the doctor," in an ominous voice. "Yes, we just need to do this, and then we'll go have lunch with Daddy," I promised. I got him out, put him in his carriage and brought him in.

He was fine through the check-in process. Fine in the pediatrician's waiting room. He even greeted the nurse with a shy "hi." It's when he saw the exam room that he lost his crap. Screaming, wailing, clinging to me -- off we went. And all the nurse was doing was weighing and measuring him.

Doc comes in, chats with me and M. Then she goes to examine him -- I'm talking listening to his heart and looking at his eyes, nothing remotely painful. He keeps wailing. We finally get through the exam, and I ask her if there will be any s-h-o-t-s. Because that is the real reason for all the wailing and gnashing of teeth. She lets me know that he needs two. So we wait for the nurse, he gets his shots, he screams all over again. On the way out, the nurse lets us know he needs blood drawn. Oy.

I make a followup appointment for one more shot he needs and head over to the lab. Again, he's fine in the waiting room. As soon as he sees the phlebotomist, he freaks again. I hold him in my lap so he doesn't struggle, and they take his blood. The poor kid has a red-streaked face, is struggling to catch his breath from crying and clinging to me. Not a fun appointment.

All this made me think of how I handled telling him about the appointment. He had no idea, when he woke up that morning, that he was going to the doctor to be examined and stuck with needles. I thought about my own overthinking habit, how I constantly anticipate danger and my next moves on the planet. Wouldn't it be great to go back to being a kid, where you had no choice to take it as it comes, to live in the moment, to have no memory and not be able to worry? Yet another thing I have to learn from the Boo.

Oh, and he got a clean bill of health. Other than one more shot, he doesn't have to go back for a well-baby exam until he's 3. Booyeah!

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