Exam

The Little Buddy had his four-year-old check up today and would you believe it, he's shot up so tall in the past year that he's no longer, according to the doctor, "on the chunky side." He's in the 50th percentile for both height and weight. First, he was a teeny baby and the doctors told me to fatten him up because they were afraid on account of his low weight. Then he was, apparently, the toddler version of obese and I was told to lighten him up. Which, uh, I disregarded because of all the TWO YEARS OLD, PEOPLE!

(And, okay, so I wasn't actually told to lighten him up but I was actually told to watch what he ate and lay off the cookies and the chicken nuggets at McDonald's and stick to the apples and the celery. Silly doctors, everyone knows that Matthew prefers the burgers at McDonald's anyway.)

Also, the child got stabbed with needles not once, not twice, but three times. He wailed as if someone was shoving bamboo shoots up into his nail beds. I knew it would be difficult because the last time he got a shot it ended in a four inch, bloody laceration on his thigh. So when they asked me if I wanted to do vaccines today (RESOUNDING YES BECAUSE WE MAY AS WELL GET IT OVER WITH!) I explained that we would need an army of nurses to hold him down.

Three nurses came in.

One held his arms. One held his legs. One quickly jabbed the needles into his thighs. And I stroked his face and whispered sweet nothings into his ear.

He hated all of us when it was over. Well, he hated the three of them. He went back and forth with me. "Hode me, mama. Wait, put me down. I'm mad. Hode me."

But now he's good to go for kindergarten.

Which, you know, isn't for 18 months.