A love-hate relationship

I had to take Joshua to his 1 year well-baby visit this afternoon.

I have a love-hate relationship with WBVs (that’s “well baby visit” for those of you not in-the-know…).

I love getting to find out how much he’s grown.

I HATE THE SHOTS.  OMGWTF.  HATE THEM.

And I’m really getting to the point where I don’t like taking him by myself because he is a monster sized handful.

He’s trapped in this six by six room (okay, MAYBE it’s eight by eight). The floor is germ-y.  He is wearing nothing but a diaper.  He doesn’t want to be on the table because he can’t play with the eye and ear scope.  But he wants to eat the paper.  But he doesn’t want to be on the table because the floor looks more fun.  But I don’t want him on the floor because there are germs.  And I am a girl and I must have cooties because he doesn’t want to be on my lap.  NOT. FUN.

So I spent this afternoon baby-wrangling and listening to him scream because it was forty MILLION BILLION DEGREES in that little cell and he wanted DOWN and OUT and ANYWHERE BUT IN MY LAP.

And I’m suffering from some serious Momxiety lately, so this visit was just unpleasant overall.

Here’s the gist:

He’s 32 1/4 inches tall–97th %ile

He weighs 25 lbs 4 oz–80th %ile

His head is 19 inches–Ninety Somethingith %ile

But he has an ear infection, so she called in an antibiotic.

And I told her about the Minute Clinic thing yesterday and she didn’t offer to write the scrip.—OH WAIT.  I DIDN’T TELL Y’ALL THE MINUTE CLINIC STORY—

Long story VERY short:  I woke up with pinkeye yesterday.  Went to the Minute Clinic after work.  Nurse Practioner there wrote me a prescription for a SEVENTY THREE DOLLAR eyedrop.  (that thing better grow my lashes, brighten my eyes, and do my laundry for $73.) Um, Hold. The. Phone.  I’m not paying that.  So I tried to call the Minute Clinic to see if she’d switch my scrip only to find out that the numbers for the Minute Clinics are UNLISTED.  So the only way to get her to write me a new scrip would be to go up there, potentially pay another $35 copay and/or spend my time waiting.  I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS SHIZ, PEOPLE.

—Back to the regularly scheduled programming—

Then I had a BREAK. DOWN. in the office because he was upset and squirmy and screaming and he wouldn’t stop crying and he isn’t sleeping and I feel bad that I’ve been feeding him at night and he won’t eat his table foods and he still takes a bottle and he won’t drink from a sippy cup or a real cup or a straw cup and I need a break and I can’t even get one.

I can’t. 

It just isn’t possible.  I don’t have ILs or parents who will come and take him some place so I can veg at the house.  I don’t have the energy to go anywhere after he goes to bed, nor do I want to go anywhere at 8:00 at night.  I don’t have the money to go anywhere on the weekends when DH is home with him.  DH doesn’t have a work schedule that is conducive to him being home to help me handle Joshua in the evenings between the time we get home and bath time when Joshua has had a rough day at school.

And it is breaking me.

So after I had a good cry and noticed some goop on his face and, through my tears, said I hoped he wasn’t getting pinkeye, too, she said she was going to call something in preventatively, but that the dosage would be the same for me and for him, so *hinthint* I don’t have to go back to the Minute Clinic.

AND THAT WAS ALL BEFORE THE SHOTS. 

So then he SCREAMED.  And SCREAMED.  And SCREAMED.  Even after I picked him up.  And the nurse informed me that he might develop the freaking CHICKEN POX near the site of his injection and that it would be contagious.  Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Mate?

deepsigh

And then the receptionist turned on the bubbles as I was checking out and he almost JUMPED OUT OF MY ARMS. 

And then we got stuck in traffic.

I need a beer.