Immunization Hijinks

Wow it has been a long time since I have posted. Apologies. Going back to work is biting into my blog time.

So, let's travel to "let's imagine" land for some way out there "what ifs". Just appease me and play along. Let's imagine that you take your child, let's call her "Minsey Kay", to the doctor for her 1 year immunizations (happy birthday Minsey Kay, here's 4 big shots in your arm). Now let's say the doctor warns you that Minsey could have a fever for a few days after the shot, and perhaps a slight rash about 10-12 days after. Are you imagining this??? Can you see it??

Now let's imagine that Minsey comes down with a fever 3 days after the shots. And it's hovering at 40. What do you imagine you would think....related to the shots, no??? What if the high fever lasts for 4 days, and you call the doctor on day 2 and are told it's related to the shots....then imagine you muster up the courage to call the doctor, because really you feel like the most fretful mother around...and you take poor Minsey in and she ends up having a raging case of Strep/Tonsillitis that shocks the doctor when she peers in her throat. You might think that is one of the most ironic things that could happen to poor Minsey. A bad infection not dealt with because you thought it was the shots. What if there was more irony coming....because weird ironic things follow you like the plague....

Now fast forward to 10 days after the shots, and 7 days after Minsey started antibiotics. Let's say that Minsey is doing better. She still has a slight fever, but seems normal. Then imagine you pick her up from daycare and she is covered in spots. Again, you might think....hmmmm....those silly shots have struck again, right? Oh my, the doctor warned me about a mild case of measles-type spots. You would probably think everything was fine with Minsey, right??? But what you don't realize is, in "let's imagine" world, irony can kick you in the ass faster than you can say "omnipotent". So let's say the next day, you arrive home from work to find that poor Minsey looks like a leopard, with huge red spots covering her entire body. Would you still think it was the immunization??? What if you phone the nurses line, afraid they will tell you that you are an overreacting mother who is suspected of having Muchausen's Syndrome by Proxy.....and they actually tell you that Minsey might be having an allergic reaction to the antibiotics and you need to do something about it right away. So you phone the doctor on call and they say stop the antibiotics immediately and take her to the doctor tomorrow....Which you do and it turns out that it is both an allergic reaction to the medicine and a reaction to the immunizations. Would you think hmmm....I should win the fretful mother award because I was correct despite all medical information that told me not to panic?? Would you look at poor Minsey and say - your mother ROCKS at listening to her inner fretter and getting you medical attention??

Now let's come out of "let's imagine" land. Do you feel better now that you are back in the land of the sane where irony isn't that ironic??? Oh wait....it isn't an imaginary place....IT'S MY LIFE!! Poor Kinsey May (I really disguised her name well, didn't I??). Both times I went to the doctor I was almost hoping that something was wrong (not that I wish pain or illness on my daughter, by the way), because I was so scared that I was waaaaaayyyyy overreacting and that the doctors would label me as one of THOSE fretful mothers.

So what enduring lesson can we learn from this weird and wacky combination of events??? That if it seems too weird to actually happen to a person, it will happen to me. Because irony and me, we go way back. I think I should rewrite the Alanis Morissette song. Or make it my theme song. Or rename myself Irony. Isn't it ironic???

It's My Party And I'll Be Goofy If I Want To

Irony isn't just someone who is being ironed.....

Ah irony. The sweet voice of fate giving you the finger. Kinsey is learning how to be ironic at a very young age. Too young, I think.

Take this week. My first week back at work. I was hoping to not be achingly tired. So Kinsey decides on Sunday night to have possibly the worst night. She was up 3 times, and then up at 5:30. I thought I would bring her into the bed and nurse her. But "Chomps" made it very uncomfortable for me. Those huge top teeth are digging into me in a very tender area. It's about as comfortable as an "au natural" c-section. So I ended the nursing session. To which she let out an ear piercing screech that signalled our sleep was officially over. Before 6 a.m. Ditto Tuesday, except she only woke up once in the night (which you might think would mean more sleep for me). I drove to work on Tuesday half asleep, and decided part way through the day, as I tried desperately to keep my eyes open, that I was not going to work on Wednesday. I've been at work for 2 days and already called in sick. I'm SUCH a trooper, huh?

Kinsey was basically a crankpot all Tuesday evening, and nursing was turning into an experiment in pain tolerance. I was pretty convinced that our nursing relationship was officially over. I refused to nurse her to sleep and gave her a bottle instead. I spent a good part of the evening mourning the end of nursing. I was prepared for a terrible night. But here's where the irony comes in. Little Monkey May slept all the way through the night (7:30 - 6:45). But on the day when I DON'T have to go to work. I think she's trying to drive me crazy!! And nursing was fine when she woke up.

I think children are innately designed to make their mothers mental. You've gotta love them.

The Efficiency Expert

We all know that Kinsey is not your everyday, average, run of the mill baby. She's always had some oddities to her that make her unique and "different". Well, today is a prime example of that. I think her cousin Erin was whispering in her ear on Sunday night when they were sleeping in the same bed. I believe she was giving her all the secrets to how to accomplish all those "firsts". Or maybe when she was going in for a "hug and kiss" (as seen in the photo below), she was actually telling Kinsey all she needed to know.


The long and the short of it is that Kinsey, apparently for efficiency sake, decided to accomplish not one, but THREE milestones. I think Erin has a future as a motivational speaker. Here are the Milestones, in the order that they occurred:

1. Kinsey climbed the stairs. All of them. For no particular reason. And then became so unrelenting with it that I had to put a gate up. And then she spent quite a while pounding on the gate. It is the unrelenting part that leads me to suspect that Erin has a hand in it. Unrelenting is a signature Erin move.
2. Kinsey spoke her first word: Uh oh. Now, whenever she wants to get anyone's attention, she just says uh oh. And she says it over and over and over. See #1 and that unrelenting thing. She was so proud of herself, and so happy to be able to communicate. I swear her whole demeanor got sunnier after that (see the picture below for the new, sunnier Kinsey).
3. We went to the park, and Kinsey walked for the first time!! She took at least 5 steps, one of them being a side step.

So now Kinsey is walking and talking and climbing stairs. We have another visit from Erin tomorrow, so next week it will be Calculus, Philosophy and Paleontology.