Colin Hits it Hard and Does Six Shots!

OK, it might be what you are thinking (that is if you were thinking this eight week old just started drinking). I accompanied Shannon and Colin to Colin's two month Dr's appointment and boy was it interesting.

But first the stats, because everyone wants to know... at eight weeks he weighs in at a whopping 11lbs 3oz., and is 23 inches long. They did his head measurement too but who really uses head measurements anyway... :-)

And so.... it was the beginning of a multi-year immunization schedule for the little guy . Five needle shots and an oral in less than 30 seconds. The nurse started with the oral (seeing the hand-full of needles she was wielding, I asked if the oral was Jack (Daniels) or Jim (Beam) ? She thought that was cute but probably gets that kind of 'humor' all the time from smart-a$$ new dads like me ;-). After the oral is down, three shots in one thigh and two into the other and we are off and running, well, running isn't the best word to use in this case.

I'll tell you what, the two-second delay between that first needle entering his chubby little thigh and the start of the screams of "WHAT THE #@!* WAS THAT ALL ABOUT!?!" Seemed like an eternity. It's a good thing little brains don't remember too much because I think we would have surely regressed back to 'the cut' if they did. Ouch!

I was with Colin because Shannon didn't really want to be right up there in front when it happened. I looked back to her about half way through and she was doing pretty well but I think she literally got each of the last two shots with him, her thoughts were plainly on her face.

Colin then received his first, of probably many, Looney Tunes Band-Aids.

If you haven't heard or have seen a baby cry like this consider yourself fortunate. We got him settled again after a few minutes and listened intently as the nurse told us what to look for over the next couple of days to ensure everything with the immunizations goes as it should.

We had planned ahead so we had given Colin Children's Tylenol before we left for the appointment. I think that helped a lot because later that afternoon we were a little late on administering the next dose and YIKES, he wasn't too happy about that.

Rough rest of the day for all of us. He wanted to eat but had trouble because anytime anything barley touched his legs he went right back to reliving the whole traumatic ordeal, screaming like a you-know-what! He almost fell asleep about 10 different times but just as he would hit the final stage he would move his legs and then WHAM, right back into full blown wailing.

The Tylenol clearly helped and eventually late in the evening, and absolutely exhausted, Colin got to sleep. I have no idea how Shannon was still functioning after all of that but there she was, laying him down into his bassinet simultaneously searching for her resting spot for the evening.

Most of the week we had been planning on doing a work visit with Ms.Claire and her parents but we were playing-it-by-ear at this point, if tomorrow was going to be anything like this day, a reschedule is in order.