Chez le médecin: trial by vaccination

After my most serious parenting fail to date I feel that, at this time, the very least I can do for my poor traumatised Chou is to make a note of yesterday’s date (Monday the 25th of March, 2019) so that he will be able to provide his future therapist with the exact moment his carefree childhood came screeching to a halt, his innocent little mind irreversibly scarred, and he developed a crippling fear of doctors and needles.

Yesterday was the date scheduled for my Chou-fleur’s first round of vaccinations, and, since I had naively accepted an afternoon appointment, we were accompanied by her chief protector and grand frère, my three-year-old Chou. He reminds me so often of how big and grown up he has become, posing and flexing his little muscles on cue like a Victorian ‘Strong Man’, and assuring me that one day (when he is a builder and has bought himself a ‘drill excavator’) he will build me and Papa a house in the car park of a particular McDonald’s situated about half an hour away from our house (our restaurant of choice these days for those rare and romantic meals out), since our current home (which he plans to restore and live in himself) is ‘old and falling down’, that I sometimes forget that deep, deep down he is still a tiny bit little. Perhaps if I include a note to the therapist explaining just how sleep-deprived and brain-addled I have been during these past eight weeks, with a plea of diminished responsibility due to temporary insanity added in for good measure, my crime of gross thoughtlessness might be partially forgiven…at any rate it is worth a try.

During our rendez-vous with the doctor everything was going according to plan and my Chou was his normal ‘helpful’ and inquisitive self, asking a million questions and always somehow managing to find himself directly under the poor doctor’s feet, no matter where she moved. He held our Chou-fleur’s little hand and reminded her to be brave. Then all of a sudden (as far as he is concerned) the doctor, without justifiable provocation, cruelly and savagely stabbed his little sister in each thigh, causing her to bleed (ever so slightly). She had done nothing to warrant such an attack; indeed she had been unusually well behaved prior to this incident, having neither screamed at nor thrown up over anyone. In fact, aside from one small puddle of a faux pas on the office floor (which, at only two months old and having not yet fully mastered the subtle art of social etiquette, is surely an excusable mistake), her conduct was exemplary.

I had anticipated, correctly, that my baby girl might object angrily to this unusual treatment. What I had not expected was the second, louder howl emanating from the suddenly inconsolable Chou by my side. Feeling like the world’s worst mother for subjecting her child to such a horrifying spectacle I endeavoured to explain that these ‘jabs’ would stop our Chou-fleur from getting poorly, but it was in vain. The poor thing was distraught. Our lovely doctor and I spent the rest of the appointment trying to comfort and reassure him whilst the official sufferer of the afternoon, my sadly neglected baby (who had stopped crying after a few seconds), was hastily dressed, bundled back into her car seat and left to her own devices. It took an exceptional raid on a normally rationed party bag of sweeties, some emergency Paw Patrol therapy and the distraction of a Duplo excavator with what can just about be passed off as a ‘rotational hydraulic shear attachment’ (bought some time previously and squirrelled away for its future bribing potential) before he was calm enough to stop insisting tearfully, over and over again, that he doesn’t like “people putting holes” in his baby.

Although the crisis is thankfully over and my Chou has made a complete recovery, he has decided that he is now afraid of needles and intends to put every last one of them “in the bin”. As for myself, I have learned my lesson and will take care that my daughter’s next set of vaccins take place whilst her best friend is at school.

Mots du jour:

Chez le médecin – At the doctor’s grand frère – big brother rendez-vous – appointment vaccins – vaccinations