Always beating the odds

At 2 months, Ollie is 11 lb. 14 oz & 23.5"

You know that woman at the pharmacy?  The one with the crying baby, the ponytail coming loose, and the bags under her eyes.  You kind of feel sorry for her, but maybe you're annoyed by her too?  No one likes to hear a crying baby.  Yeah, today that was me.  You see, Ollie got his first round of vaccinations.

I sat in the doctor's office listening as the doctor gave me dosing instructions for children's tylenol, just in case we needed to use it.  She went on to say that only 20% of babies run a fever in response to the shots.  That should have been my first cue.

You see in this house, we're really good at beating the odds.  Everyone told us Ollie would be late.  The doctor started prepping me for an induction well before our due date.  Yet, little Ollie came early.  All the books and classes stressed that a woman's water does not usually break in advance of contractions -- Hollywood had it wrong, they said -- and then my water broke in advance of the contractions.

So, I really should have listened more carefully when the doctor said, "That means most babies don't run a fever.  Hopefully, that's Oliver."  Oh, and note to self: next time the doctor is giving you instructions for meds your child might need, GO BUY THE MEDS.  For some reason, it didn't occur to me that we'd really need them, or maybe I thought that I'd have some kind of notice.  Ollie would text me, "OMG! Starting to feel bad. Go get meds!"  But he didn't and I didn't.

Instead, he woke up from a nap screeching in pain - he had a low grade fever and the vaccination site was red and swollen.  And I wasn't prepared.  After comforting him for a while, I realized we were going to need the meds, packed him up and off we went.  Luckily, he found the car soothing and there wasn't much crying until we got into the store.  I raced off to the pharmacy, located the pain relievers and found that they don't keep kid meds with adult meds.  I yelled questions at the poor guy behind the counter until I found what I needed and headed up front.  Of course, there was a long line and lots of people there to hear and see me bouncing my child in a car seat, chatting with him, and when those things didn't work, starting to recite, "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?" from memory.

And as if there wasn't enough for me to be embarrassed about, as I left the store, I stepped in a big puddle, a big, gross puddle of warm liquid in the parking lot of the CVS.  Ugh!

On the bright side, Ollie is doing well - he's putting on weight like a champ (11 lb. 14 oz.) and keeps growing taller (23.5"); it looks like he's going to be tall and thin like his dad.  And after 2 doses of tylenol, lots of cuddling, and a couple of readings of "Mr. Brown," he's finally asleep.