You can shoot her up, but you can't keep her down.

My poor baby. She had her one year well-visit today and received FIVE shots. Three in one tiny leg, and two in the other. I'm not going to go down the vaccination debate path (we've chosen to follow the prescribed schedule as reccomended by our doctors) but it does seem cruel to give such a tiny person so many shots all at once.

She really handled the whole experience like a pro. Actually, I think I cried before she did. I had an embarassing Michele-breaks-down-in-public-after-VERY-little-provocation moment. I undressed E for the customary weigh in and measurement and (very understandably in my mind) she began to cry as I lay her on the exam table. It's a scary thing to be stripped naked and laid under florescent lights on crinkle paper! I don't blame her in the least for losing her cool, but the tech/nurse guy (whatever) looks over his shoulder and says to me, "She doesn't spend much time away from you, does she?" with a (perhaps imagined) hint of judgement in his voice.

"Why do you say that?" I shot back.

"Oh, just because she reacts that way." he replied.

And then I was all upset. When will I stop being so sensitive about the offhand comments of complete strangers? So what if I'm her primary care giver? So what if she finds comfort in me? It's a perfectly normal and natural phase that children go through at this time in their lives to be clingy (hello, separation anxiety?). And of course then it doesn't help that he takes her measurements and after going to record them on the chart looks concerned then comes back with the tape measure to measure her head circumference once more.

"It's nothing to be worried about," he says, looking worried. "I just wanted to double check I had it right." In addition to having an apparently big head (above 95th percentile), E weighs in the 15th percentile and measures in the 25th.

When we saw our doctor, I kept it together until he asked me if I had any concerns. I started welling up a bit (HOW embarassing--go ahead, try looking not hysterical and obsessive as you cry while complaining about being made out to be overbearing and hyperprotective) as I explained the tactlessness of the nurse-man. Our doctor was very comforting and said that the nurses aren't pediactric nurses, so any observations they make are based on their own personal opinions. He went on to say that Evie's big head, in his opinion, indicates high intelligence, and that her measurements and weight are well within healthy range and that he much prefers to see children on the low end rather than the high, as is so often the case in America these days. He said she's looking fantastic and was amused (and a bit disgusted) by the carrot-baby story at the Krankenhaus. (One of the first things he said to me upon examining her was, "This orangish coloration is perfectly normal and comes from carrots. Do not worry about it.")

After the exam and FIVE shots, we also needed to go have her finger pricked so that routine bloodwork could be done. Evie was fine through all of this, although she wanted to be carried rather than put in her stroller. (All the while I'm thinking sarcastically in my head, "She doesn't spend much time away from you, does she?") After this we headed back to the car. By this point Evelyn has already ripped off the bandaid on her recently punctured finger, and after I got her settled in her carseat began work removing the FIVE bandaids on her little legs. I pulled over in the parking lot (I had already begun making for the exit) to take the bandaids from her so she wouldn't eat them. When I twisted back around in my seat, however, I discovered that my ID card (required to gain entrance on post) had fallen from where I had lodged it in my lapbelt and was nowhere to be found. Great. As I looked for it, Evie fell asleep in the back almost instantly and my anxiety increased as I imagined having to wake the baby to go through some ridiculous rigamarole in order to get on post if I couldn't find the darn ID.

It took me five minutes of crawling around on the floor board and looking in every possible crevice (of course I chose to wear a skirt today...) before I finally found it. Whew.

Evie woke when I carried her inside, but fell asleep almost instantly. She woke again when the phone rang, but again fell immediately back to sleep. She's still zonked (an hour an a half now...). Poor B.

We're having a bad day today

When things are going bad, I have the tendency to want them to stay that way. "What?!?" you ask, "Michele, that makes no sense! Don't you want things to get better?" The real answer is, of course I do. The answer when I'm in the depths of my pity party (You're not invited, thanks, it's a party for one. I like feeling alone. And miserable. Go away, I have no friends.) is No. Life sucks. And then you die. The world is out to get me. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms.

Today just started off on the wrong foot. I was up really late last night finishing my homework for class--I'd put it off until the last minute and HAD to get it done last night. Evelyn was cranky when she woke up. She didn't want to take her nap this morning. I somehow feel a little dizzy and keep bumping into things today. I've hit my head twice already. Ouch. I haven't showered in a day. (I should be showering now, but it feels better when you're miserable to be dirty too. Don't want to do anything that might accidentally make me feel better.) The weather is super crappy and cold. We went out to run errands and of course no one was friendly. I felt fat and dirty and blech. We came home and I called the Nurse's hotline--I've been meaning to for a week now; Evie has a bit of an orangey tint to her skin that comes and goes. I don't think it's jaundice; her eyes are perfectly white and she doesn't have the other symptoms listed online for jaundice. I think it's much more likely that it's something like carotenemia but I want to make sure of course that she's okay and I'm not brushing off something serious.

Well, the nurse on the hotline said I should have her seen within 3 days. Now I feel kinda guilty because I've noticed this orangey-ness for a while now and haven't been compelled to spring into action on it. It seems to come and go and she acts normal and healthy. But I called in to get an appointment, and of course, they don't have any appointments. My options are 1)the emergency room 2)call non-stop and be on hold for the next 5 hours of my life to see if they have an opening that becomes available. I freaked out on the woman on the phone, pushed to the point of tears as Evelyn spat apricots at me and I stared blankly out the window at the gray. She gave me the number for the nurses line here in Baumholder; the other line was apparently stateside.

On top of it all, I can't help but have these huge nagging paranoid doubts about my ability to be a human being, let alone a mother. I haven't been eating that well--nothing sounds good, and I worry that Evelyn's diet isn't up to snuff or that maybe my breastmilk isn't giving her all of what she needs. I'm afraid that my lifelong food issues are going to be passed on to her.

I know it isn't as bleak as it feels right now. Thankfully, Evie has settled down for a nap, and will most likely be in a better mood when she wakes. I probably just need some more sleep myself and to go take a shower (and workout--which I haven't done in over a week!).

On a completely unrelated note, here are some pictures of Evelyn being adorable with my growing afghan:

Domestically challenged

My poor, poor sweater. What a fool I am. Of course, the tag does say 'hang dry', but what do tags know? The zipper caught the shoulder seam and mangled my poor sweater to death. I really loved this sweater too...I went back to check if American Eagle was still selling them, but alas, no.