How Was YOUR Day?

Today, at one week before his sevenmonurthday, Trombone got his 6 month immunizations. As with the previous two appointments, I didn’t know how he’d react.

At 2 months, his shots actually coincided with him finishing a hissy fit and becoming a really nice baby for a week or so; at 4 months he took it in stride and didn’t even object when I inched the circular sticky bandages off his fat thighs. But this morning I was especially nervous, as he had woken at 7 am and the appointment was for 9:40. The clinic is a half hour walk away. We’d have to be getting our shoes on at 9 am. Which meant either he would have to have a quick nap from 8 – 9 or no nap + sharp needles = me nursing him while I walk home to get him to stop screaming. Or so it went in my head.

At 8 am I tried for the nap. At 8:15 we came back downstairs and he chewed on stuff while I packed the stroller. At 8:40 we left the house. I figured if I walked slowly and took a meandering route, he might drop off to sleep.

We walked very slowly. It was a cool, overcast morning, not as spring-like as yesterday (yesterday it was Very Springlike, with temperatures at +10C and sunshine; I walked around in my t-shirt and Trombone went hatless, which prompted a woman pushing her own, snowsuited child in its own stroller, to comment, “Aren’t you cold?” to Trombone, to which I replied, “He has a lot of body-fat” and did not say “It’s 10 fucking degrees! Get your thyroid checked!” because I am above that sort of thing) but still very pleasant. We wandered along 1st Street, next to the park, crossed Royal Ave. and walked up Agnes Street which reminds me a lot of the East side of Vancouver, near Clark and 7th ave; lots of low-rise stucco buildings with names like “The Ridgeview” and “Marilyn Manor II” (that one cracks me up every time I pass it.)

Trombone did not sleep, nor did he cry. He watched things go by and stretched his right hand out of the stroller, grabbing for tree branches and hedges. I kept thinking, “Keep your head and arms inside the mixer at all times!” but I knew there were probably no revolving knives inside the hedges of Agnes Street so I let him be.

We headed downhill at 6th Street and passed some construction people carving lines in the road with a circular saw; they smiled at Trombone and he stared wide-eyed at them. We got to Carnarvon, where the health clinic is, 15 minutes before our appointment so we kept walking to Columbia, which is the bottom of the hill, and I thought about getting a coffee at Starbucks but decided against it. I am tired today. Don’t know why.

On Columbia we sat and watched people go by for a few minutes. The police station is at that corner and we saw several people go in and come out. Groups of people in suits with briefcases started up the hill, not talking to one another, clutching cups of coffee. I wondered if they were heading to the courthouse to watch the trial.

It’s invigorating to push a stroller up the hill from Columbia, even if it’s just one block. I felt a stretch in the back of my thighs and immediately felt more alive and well. It’s funny how exercise can do that for you.

At the clinic, a warm, buxom volunteer helped us weigh and measure Trombone (20 lbs 2 oz, 27 inches) and a student nurse explained the diseases he was being immunized against. She commented on his blue eyes and I refrained from commenting on hers (one brown and one green.) She said she had read recently that blue eyes can be inherited from as far back as 7 generations. She said was researching this because she really wants a baby with blue eyes.

Trombone was smiling and happy to be surrounded by friendly women who told him he was gorgeous. A 6 month old girl baby had just finished her post-shots feed and was sitting on her mum’s lap, staring around the room as though memorizing it for next time. She had very little hair and adult-sized ears.

Of course, he shrieked when the needles went in.

After 4 minutes of concentrated suckling and 3 minutes of pulling off my boob to look at the nice lady sitting next to me, who was not helping by making faces at him and clicking her tongue, he was back to normal, all smiles for the room and trying to eat his Passport To Health. I was letting him do this but stopped when the volunteer lady said, “Oooh, maybe you shouldn’t eat that.” She should see what I let him eat at home. Phone books, an old remote control with no batteries in it, the mail that comes for the guy who used to live here. Kid’s immunized against more than just diptheria, methinks.

15 minutes is how long you have to wait after the shots. The nurses want to make sure the baby isn’t having an adverse reaction. So we sat and looked at the other babies; tried not to listen to the one in the exam room, an 18 month year old who speaks English and Mandarin and who shrieked “I DON’T WANT THIS” (in English, obvs.) at the key moment. We all tried not to laugh. His mom, who is 7 months pregnant, had gone in with him and when they came out, she was switching off her little video camera.

Dear Trombone: I will never videotape you getting shots. Love, yr. mother.

Packed up in the stroller again, I expected some complaints (we were by then at 3 1/4 hours of awake-time, plus physical and emotional trauma) from Trombone but he just grabbed the closest duck to him and gnawed on it while I pushed 37 lbs (baby = 20, stroller = 17) up the hill. The novelty of that stretch in my thighs? Had worn off within 2 blocks.

By 3 blocks I was promising myself 8 breakfast sandwiches when I got to the top. It’s a damn steep hill.

But when we got to the top, Trombone was starting to slump forward and his eyelids were drooping. I reclined him and tucked his blanket around him and we carried on home. I parked him in the kitchen and turned on the stove fan. He sleeps still. Immunizations are magic, I tell ya.