to tell or not to tell

this past week was full of doctor appointments. what fun! parker had to go in for her 4 yr. checkup/shots. the day before her appointment i mentioned real innocent-like to her, "tomorrow you have a doctor's appointment" to which she immediately replied, "do i have to get a shot?"

oops.

i said "i don't know."

"call the doctor and find out!"

so i did. the nurse said yes, she would be getting shots. great. the dilemma. to tell or not to tell. last time we went to the doctor, she got an unexpected flu shot for which she was of course unprepared for. that was awful. so . . . for some weird reason, besides the fact that i couldn't lie to her, i thought maybe it would be better if she knew what was coming this time.

"yes parker, you'll be getting a shot."

thus began the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad rest of the day. the rest of the day, night and next morning were shot (pun intended.) she cried whenever she remembered (which was all the time) about that impending shot. she was so worried that she had a rough time going to sleep (which is usually a breeze for her) and woke up crying the next morning. the stress her poor little body was going through, just knowing what was coming. poor girl.

and i was really feeling for her. i could totally remember being little and knowing i was going to have a shot. nothing was worse than that feeling. and even knowing i would have to get shots in the far-away future was no good. that's a good way to ruin a whole year if you ask me.

when it was time to leave, she seemed happy and like she'd accepted her fate, saying to grammy, "bye, i'm going to my doctor's 'appointnunt', i have to get a shot." great, i thought. i did the right thing. she's had enough time to process the fact and she's okay with it. i was patting myself on the back. she even did great during her checkup, talking up a storm with the doctor, smiling when he checked her ears and eyes, as if he were taking a picture.

but then. . . shot time.

three pokes. a finger prick (for a blood sample), a t.b. test (for preschool) and a shot in the shoulder. brutal.

a lot of crying, but really not as bad as i'd anticipated. she really only screamed for the finger prick. ouch.

later, in her own words she said, "i got a finger prick, a t.b. test and a shot in my shoulder. i really only cried for the finger prick, the other two didn't hurt."

but what a relief to have that over with! of course such an event warranted an ice-cream treat which always makes things like that better.

but then began the band-aid drama . . .