terror threat on university ave: level red.

or perhaps more aptly titled, your father's a consistent coward and a turd and your mother's a terrible recalcitrant tool who's not going to weather the bumpy ride of boydom well.

would you like some background... hmm? yes?

when we made the decision to have finn circumcised i officially left the choice up to eric. i figured he's got the junk, so he can deal with the explanations of why his is different than finn's or the same, or whatever. i'm not teaching him to pee, nor am i really much of an expert on the finer details of penis-dom and "all it's glory" according to eric. so it was his choice to snip. so when the time came to do the procedure at the hospital, eric was conveniently not there, he was at home. and i was invited to join in the festivities and politely declined. mostly because i couldn't bear to see him in pain. here, i committed my first act of terrible motherliness. how could i leave my son to experience the most painful episode of his life without being there to hold his hand? it makes me sick thinking of it. so, at that point i vowed to never not be there for him again.

which brings us to his vaccinations last week. strike two. eric was conveniently too busy to leave work to come attend and i was left to offer him up to the slaughter. it all happened so fast. one minute she was pulling out the needles (they were huge... stutter, bawk, stutter, head shaking...), and then she was sticking him in that precious little chubby thigh and he was SCREAMING. screaming like i've never heard him scream before. it makes the picture below seem like he's smiling for perspective.

and before i knew it i had already broken my promise. i wasn't there for him. i was a few steps away watching in horror. now in reality this all took place in a few nano-seconds, because i reached out to him to grab his hands for needles 2 and 3 in the other beautiful, until a moment ago unblemished, thigh. so, i was there for the rest of the terror, but not for the first offense. and i'll tell you, when he first screamed he turned and looked at me in abject horror as if i was the evil nurse sticking him and i felt such remorse and sadness.... not to mention ill at the sight of the drops of blood pooling up on his sweet little thighs. he spent the next half hour in a state of stunned shock... which was almost worse than the screaming.

i shouldn't say that the nurse is evil. she's not and she was very loving and was blessfully quick and efficient about stabbing him in the thighs with those unnecessarily monstrous needles. in fact, she held him afterwards and bounced him apologizing to him all the way. she's a wonderful nurse, she's been his nurse since we started visiting the pediatrician's office, but i think finn and she will be starting a rocky point in their relationship. she also said he's the most handsome baby ever, and then promptly told me, "get this baby away from me, i'm not havin' me another baby!" she's funny. so she won back her brownie points with that comment.

so anyway, long story short.... eric WILL be in attendance at the 4 mo vacc appt, or we're not going. i'm not about to experience that look of terror on my son's face alone again. he can experience the sinking guilt too.