They can't all be good

This was not the best of days, certainly not for Vivienne, and well, for us either. I know we are about 3 weeks behind, but Vivi had her one year checkup today. All systems are go! Perfect. Healthy. She continues to be, how did the doc put it..., "off the infant chart". Quite literally, she's 100%, which doesn't mean straight A's. It means, you are enormous and you don't fit on our percentage scale! Her doctor came in and seriously said, "Well Vivienne, you're right on track! No one will beat you up in school -- you'll be the tallest one!" I knew something was up when the nurse gasped as she was measuring her height. Is 33 inches that long for 12 months? Anyway, MAJOR tangent. Sorry.

The horrible part where I wanted to break down and completely lose my mind, was when it was time to have her blood drawn. Seriously, it is not okay to physically hold down your child while they are putting a needle in her arm to find a vein and draw blood. Routine testing? More like, EXTREME TORTURE! Thank god Mitch came over to meet us for this final part, because this was definitely a two person job. To top it off, she had just come from getting her immunizations, where I had to pin her down on the table as she screamed bloody murder while getting poked 3 times. I never knew 10 seconds could seem like 10 millennium, or that the sight of disease containing needles aimed at my child could make me so nauseated! Tangent alert: I truly think that they should make a separate waiting room for the poor babies and kids that have to listen to someone like Vivi get their shots right before they go in themselves. The look on this one poor little boy's face as we exited the exam room was so horrifying. And his parents looked at me like, what the hell are they doing in there? Skinning people alive? I mean, they should think about this dynamic.

Needless to say, it was rough. I've never seen Vivi look so sad. She's had immunizations before, but this time was just rough. The blood draw was the icing on the cake. The rest of her day was much better, when two of her favorite people (Auntie Andilene and Uncle Jeff) came over to cheer her up. I was even able to remove her little bandages in the bath without her even noticing. I'm off to bed now, where I will be watching the monitor every five minutes for her chest to rise and fall. It's gonna be a long night...