Immunizations

I hate immunizations, vaccinations, shots, whatever you want to call them.  I don't like getting them and I hate watching my kids get them.  Not only is it not fun to get jabbed, there's something that just doesn't feel right about taking a perfectly healthy kid and loading them up with germs.

It doesn't help that now there is so much guilt.  You are a bad parent if you don't immunize - think of what would happen if your poor child actually got the disease.  But you are a bad parent if you do immunize - why increase your child's risk of autism and other side effects for diseases that have virtually been eradicated?  (The current official word is that there is no correlation between immunizations and autism, but that doesn't stop the guilt trip that comes from other parents...)

I know parents who cry every time they take their baby in for shots.  While I certainly understand where they are coming from, it never bothered me that much.  Maybe it's because everything makes them cry at that age.  Or, as another dad whose child lived in the NICU put it to me, once you've seen your child with an IV in his head, what's a little pinprick shot?  Or maybe I'm just insensitive.  I don't know.

Last week I took Ree to the doctor for her four-year-old check up.  We had previously been told that she was good on immunizations until she was 5 and got loaded up to get ready for kindergarten.  Little did we know, North Carolina laws have changed, and now they administer all those shots at age 4 since most kids go to pre-K programs.  So the poor girl got 4 shots plus a the flu shot mist up her nose.  I was not as okay with this.

Ree is a tough kid, and she was okay with just holding my hands while the nurse did her thing.  First shot, no problem.  Second shot, though, she arched her back and her whole body clenched with pain.  Her eyese immediately welled up with tears.  Yikes.  Although the other two shots were relatively uneventful, t that was just the beginning.

She was sick all weekend.  Really run down, awful sick.  By Friday night she said her legs hurt, but we figured she was just sore from where she had been jabbed.  By Saturday morning, she wasn't walking right and you could tell she muscles and joints were actually achy.  She also ran a fever that didn't want to break.  Of course we had a family work day at her preschool that day, so all of us were out the door at 7:40 in the morning for a day of family "fun."  The poor girl just sat at preschool not wanting to play with any of the other kids whose parents were busy working.  (At least the boys had a great time.  Michael followed around the older girls trying to get their attention and Leon spent over and hour and a half at one point playing in the pretend kitchen area.)

She did feel a bit better on Sunday night, but then she woke up on Monday covered in a rash.  By Tuesday she was starting to feel better, and yesterday she seemed to finally really be on the mend.  It's a good thing she is done with shots until 2017, because it may take me that long to accept that this way is "better."

Well Babies

The boys went in for their two-month, well-baby check ups this week. I happy to report that we are now intervention free! We were finally given permission to officially take M off his apnea monitor. This means we now have no extra equipment in our house. (Or at least we will as soon as I remember to call the equipment provider to have them pick up the monitor.) Woohoo!

In addition to getting the full battery of two-month immunizations, the boys were also subjected to CBCs to check their neutrophil counts. (You should've seen the band-aid collection on the poor little guys!) I am happy to report that once again, the blood counts came back normal.

Other news from the appointment:

M now weighs 7 pounds, 14 ounces and is 20 3/4" long. We have completely non-PC nicknames for our kids, and we refer to him as our chunky monkey. If it helps you visualize, he has just about outgrown newborn size clothes, and he has a double chin. Some days he has a triple chin.

When we were in the NICU, M was sooo laid back. He was happy to just see everyone for a few minutes every four hours to eat. That changed abruptly about two weeks ago. He is now what is affectionately called a high-need baby. He likes to be held. And he has taken to SCREAMING during the night. Our appointment actually took place after two bad nights in a row. I explained this to our doctor. Then I told her that he can be consoled. He settles right down if held or if allowed to sleep in any of the forbidden positions - on his tummy, on his side, or in our bed laying on a pillow. That's when she gave me the dreaded, patronizing look I feared. Then she confirmed my worst fear. There is nothing wrong with our child. This is his personality. It just took awhile to emerge. Since he does occasionally projectile-vomit (trust me, this is not spit up!), she did prescribe an antacid for him. It won't keep him from vomiting, but it will keep it from burning. She said it wouldn't hurt to try, and we could always discontinue it if it didn't make a difference. The real prescription is to keep him in a sling or a front pack and with us as much as possible during the day and to try to anticipate his needs.

M also inherited my skin, the poor thing, and he is now suffering from eczema, cradle cap, and baby acne, not to mention a hideous rash from the strap of the apnea monitor. The doctor was not concerned at all, but she did tell us we could use cortizone to treat the worst patches.

L, on the other hand, apparently just has a flair for the dramatic, and now that he is over his major issues, is doing just fine. Our non-PC nickname for him is skinny-mini, and he is now 6 pounds, 13 ounces and 19 3/4" long. He has (relatively) long, lanky arms and legs. He does not have any of M's fat rolls. I also refer to L as my bowling ball, although he is not that large, since he likes to spend most of his time curled up like a ball. (It goes beyond the fetal position, my little yogi will invert his legs so his feet are up by his chest.) Everything with him looked great, although the little guy did have a yeast infection thanks to spending nearly a month on antibiotics. We got him some nice, manly athlete's foot cream to treat it, and he should be good to go.

Although the doctor had no concerns, I was a little concerned about L's lower weight gain. (There is nothing like having two children the same age to make a mom completely neurotic!) I think the reason that he gained so much less weight has to do with the fact that he moved from getting expressed milk to nursing at the breast and after being so scheduled for so long, he's just not demanding the breast enough. Apparently he agreed, because when I offered him a bottle again, he instantly chugged it down. So it looks like he too will primarily drink from bottles. Since I am going back to work, this is not entirely a bad thing.