I’m Big Now, Right?

My little skinny white boy had him a hard day. We had to stop at the doctor’s office this morning instead of going to school to get caught up on his shots. I failed to mention this to him until we pulled up in the parking lot. Even then, the word shot did not come out of my mouth. When we got back in the examination room and I found out he was going to have 4 separate shots in his tiny little arms, I almost packed up and started gathering our home-schooling supplies, but we had come that far.
He whimpered when I started explaining what we had to do, and don’t think I didn’t blame it on rules, and government, and all that is evil. I explained how Christian had to do it, I had to do it, Daddy had to do it, how I didn’t want him to have to do it, but how much I knew he wanted to go to Christian’s school next year and ride the bus home with him in the afternoon, how it was totally unfair, and I’d buy him anything at Wal-mart that he could carry. When that first needle hit him, the scream broke my heart. With each stick came a scream, and I desperately wanted to cry. After the last shot I got his attention quickly and told him that was it, it was over. The crying stopped and the lip quivered while he sat in my lap defeated, making those awful I’m trying not to cry, gaspy, jerky breathing noises. We got his shirt on and gathered our sanity and my purse and hauled ass. He got over it sooner than I would have and was pretty proud of himself the rest of the day. That Wal-mart trip and treat from MawMaw & PawPaw didn’t hurt. When I asked him if he was ready to take the band-aids off, he just put his little head down and said, “No, Momma, I don’t want to see those holes in my arms.”  Damn those rules and the government and all that is evil!! I can’t believe you made my baby have to get 4 shots. That’s just wrong.