WBB 5 year check up and 3 shots

William's 5 year doctor's appointment was last Thursday.  Three days prior, I started prepping him for the fact that he'd be getting 3 shots at his visit.  For 3 days, we talked about it, we planned for it, we walked through it, we discussed needles, we pinched each other for practice, we talked and talked about it.

But when you are 5 and you are getting 3 shots, you are just not ready.  ever.

The visit started out pretty routine with the nurse taking his measurements.  William is 43 inches tall and 45 pounds.  He's in the 75% in both categories.  After his height check, William smiled at me to say, "Mom, just 5 more inches and we are going to the Boeing plant!" (You have to be 48 inches tall for the Boeing tour and William's been working on growing for about 3 years).

After the measurements, we returned to our room where the nurse asked William to change into a gown so the doctor could check him out.  The gown had a bunch of tigers on it and Adeline immediately started "roaring" at William when he got suited up in the gown.  It was hilarious.  She laughed and laughed and roared and roared.  She pointed to all the tigers and got a kick out of it.  Looking back, I am so grateful to have some humor in the room about T-20 minutes before the shots.

William had to stand in the hallway and perform an eye exam.  He passed with flying colors and I laughed to myself when I saw him reading the eye chart.


He also soared through the hearing test which I find amusing given the 100,000,000 times I have to tell him to listen to me every single day. ha!


The nurse told William she'd be back in a few minutes with the shots.  My boy went from cloud nine to pure panic.  I don't blame him.  If I was 5 and knew 3 shots were coming at me, I think I would be as terrified as he was in that moment. 

He was very nervous and asked the nurse to show him the needles.  Then he tensed up and got REALLY upset.  I had to pin him down on the table and hold onto him while the nurse stuck him 3 times.   And he cried.  No, he screamed.  He screamed and bawled tears of pure sadness for about 5 minutes.  It took me awhile to calm him down and get him to realize that it was all over.  I KNOW his tears were from panic, not necessarily pain.  But even still, I can't blame him.  Cuz when you are 5 and you are getting 3 shots at once, there is NOTHING easy about it.  I will hand it to him for acknowledging the fact that he HAD to get the shots and there was simply no way out.  But bless his heart, it killed me to see him so upset.  At least when kids are babies the crying doesn't last but a minute and they really have no clue what hit them.....but when your child is older, wiser and in tune with the situation, the whole experience is a thousand times worse.

Now part of this situation could be my fault.  I am usually very strict about my kids getting one shot at a time.  I follow this rule for my own sanity and have stayed on course for 5 years.  This time around, I knew William had to have these 3 shots for kindergarten and now that he's 5, I felt ok taking him to get them all at once. They were boosters for shots he received as a baby.  From those original shots, he had no side effects so there was no big reason to worry that the boosters would change anything.  I feel like with William we are out of the scary shot zone that I read about all the time.  As for Adeline, she still gets her shots one at a time and I will keep it that way until she's older too. 

Back to the doctor's visit.  During the chaos of William's shots, Adeline was on her own in the room.  She found a few toys in my purse but when she heard William scream, my little loyal lady, burst into tears for her brother.  She stopped dead in her tracks and freaked out.


And so I had 2 screaming, bawling children behind closed doors at the doctor's office. 

Once I got the troops calmed down and I was able to shake William from his shock, we suited up and headed to Mazzio's for a pizza lunch with Dada.  William's battle wounds were sore, but he soldiered on the rest of the day.

And perhaps by coincidence or as a result of the shots (I don't know which), William went to bed completely exhausted.  He woke up the next morning complaining of a stomach ache and how much his legs hurt.  He rolled around on the floor, barely ate anything and took a 2 hour nap.  Late in the afternoon, I thought we otta get out of the apartment and take a drive for some fresh air.  We ended up at JoAnn's Fabrics where my little post-shot patient barfed all over aisle 4.  Yes, he was so sick.  I felt about 2 inches tall and rank that moment as one of my top 3 lowest moments of parenting guilt.  I thought he was just out of sorts from the day before.  I never dreamed he was actually sick. 

Like I said, I don't know if the barfing was a result of too much medicine or just a quick flu bug.  But I do know that I felt HORRIBLE for my little guy.  Sometimes being a mom is just SO HARD.  I would have given anything to be the person to get those 3 shots just so I didn't have to watch William go through that on top of  the barfing.

 And I would give anything to have all the answers.

Here's to always remembering the 5 year old doctor's visit.  And thankfully, William doesn't get another shot until he turns 11 years old.  Remind me to send Dada instead of me.