You made me sick!!

It's the only place I know that you go in feeling good and leave feeling bad. It's the doctor's office. Brooklyn had her 6-month check-up a couple days ago. She went in being her usual happy self, except for a few fussy moments here and there. We learned that she is progressing beautifully in both her weight/height/head circumference and developmental skills. The doctor was quite impressed that she can pull herself up to a standing position! We listed our concerns/questions and the doctor answered them - we have such an amazingly caring doctor - and gave us the run down on what solid foods we should start trying and when. Then, the doctor said her goodbyes and wished us all well, but before heading out the door, she turned around and said, "I'll send it the nurse to administer the shots."

Okay, we knew they were coming. In fact, we were told at her 4-month check-up to give her Infant Tylenol BEFORE coming to the appointment, which we did. The nurse comes in with the needles and shot solution and asks me to lay Brooklyn down on the table. I was all prepared to hold her in my lap as I was already sitting on the examining table. But, the nurse was insistent on having her lay down on the table. Brooklyn, with Pappy (her pacifier) in her mouth, lay on the table and her eyes were getting bigger and bigger by the second. I was holding one hand and Daddy was holding the other when the first needle was shoved into her little thigh. She looked up at us in shock, and within a few seconds she started crying. Two more pricks, and she was done. The nurse quickly washed her hands, and told us to watch her temperature and dose her accordingly with Tylenol, and then she rushed out of the room leaving us with our poor, upset baby. We got her calmed down, dressed and heading out of the room ourselves.

She fell asleep on the ride home. When she awoke, she was okay, very playful. We had dinner, went for a little walk and watered our flowers - that's when she started whimpering with her eyes half open and her little lips and checks all red. I brought her in the house and took her temperature - 101.4! I carefully changed her into her PJs and we read some books. The whole time she was whimpering, not crying, but whimpering. She kept trying to crack a smile for us, but it was just more than she could handle. And, let me say this, I would much rather have her cry than whimper, it's such a sad noise and look that comes across her face. With crying, we've gotten pretty good at distinguishing the hungry cry from the tired cry, but with whimpering, you just know that she isn't feeling good. She wasn't hungry, she really wasn't into her bedtime stories, she just simply wanted to be held. After a couple hours of rocking her in the chair, we laid her down for the night half expecting her to be up. (We were deciding which one of us wanted to sleep in the chair with her.) She slept through the night only waking when Pappy fell out of her mouth, but over the monitor, you could hear a moan every time she breathed.

It's been a couple days now. This morning she was whimpering a little, but after a couple rounds of Peek-A-Boo, she turned that whimpering into laughing. There is nothing better than hearing her laugh. I'm just glad that we don't have to take her to the doctor's office until she's a year-old!