Brave Girl

Oh, the shots. they are soooo hard for both mimi and me. mimi had her 4 year old well check last friday before we left to go to hampton for my dad's birthday. she was measured and weighed and vision, blood pressure, et al was checked. she is 38.5 inches which puts her in the 25th percentile for height and weighs in at 37 lbs which puts her in the 50th percentile for weight. her body mass index is in the 80th percentile which means she is overweight. the doc says she needs more physical exercise. mimi is the kind of kid, who like me, prefers to sit at home and draw/paint, work on the computer, write/read books, etc. so getting her to run and play is a bit of a challenge, esp when there aren't many friends for her to play w/in our neighborhood.

while she was being measured and weighed she looks up at the nurse and says, "How am I doing? am i a good patient?" the nurse laughed and told her she was great. then for the vision screening, they showed mimi a chart and asked her to identify the shapes of various images like wheels and flags. they really just wanted the general shapes, but mimi doesnt say, circle, she says, it's a circle that looks like a black tire with funny kinda wiggly marks on it. and instead of square, she says, its a square that has lines and stars and the lines are straight. it was taking so long that i finally said, mimi just tell the nurse the shapes. we zipped thru the eye screen in no time after that. her vision is 20/30 which is normal for her age.

then we were escorted to a private room and they gave mimi a paper gown to wear. she totally got a kick out of that. the doc came in and asked mimi how she was doing and mimi says, "oh, i'm great!" then the doc checked mimi, asked her to hop on each foot. mimi hops her on her right foot no problem. doc says to switch feet and mimi does but starts to lose her balance and she says, "i can do it, but it's not too easy to do with this fancy dress on."

after getting checked over the doc left and mimi asked if the check up was done. i had been told there were two shots forth coming so i broke the news to her as gently as i could that she would be getting two shots. mimi tensed up and said fearfully, will it hurt? i told her it probably would, but remember when Corduroy the bear went to the doctor and had to get shots and he was so brave? the nurse came in with the shots and this year, instead of shots in the fleshy part of the thighs, they did the shots in the upper arm, one on each arm. mimi clung tight to me, very tense and was in a lot of pain from the first shot, but she didnt cry, even tho i could see it on her face that she really wanted to. i held out a piece of doublemint gum and put it in her mouth and we tensed up and readied ourselves for the next shot. mimi was tensed and said in a tremulous voice, it's going to hurt! i said, i know baby, but it will be over real soon. the nurse will be fast and pretty soon it wont hurt any more. you're being so so brave! and she took the next shot, furiously chewing the gum, and was a real trooper, never shed a tear. the nurse told her she was an awesome patient, the best she'd ever seen. and mimi and i left out of there and despite the pain she was very proud of being so brave.

as we walked out to the parking lot she was happily trotting, tripped over her own two feet, and fell on the asphalt and then the dam broke and she cried and cried and cried. cried b/c she fell and i think she finally cried after getting those damn shots! as we drove off to hampton, she quickly fell asleep in her car seat. it wasnt until the next evening, after my dad's party that i noticed a HUGE angry red area on each of her arms, the size of tennis balls. the heat coming off the spot was intense and the area felt hard to the touch. mimi refused to let me touch it. i said, what happened? my mom immediately recognized it as a result of the shot (i've never had that happen to mimi before!), but mimi answered, "maybe a bug bit me, mama." poor child had been cranky all day and seemed to be slightly feverish, but we were so busy prepping for dad's party to really notice her. poor child must have been feeling poorly from those shots.

you can see in the picture above (she is sitting on her Eemo Hyonah's (MoMo) lap) there's a big red blotch on her arm. this was 3 days after the shot and the inflammation was starting to go down.