Those Kindergarten Shots

The summer before I started Kindergarten my mom took me in for my required immunizations.

And boy did I give her a run for her money.

Amped up on anticipation, she and the nurse had to wrestle me into submission — because I was not willingly having any part of this — and when the shot was administered I screamed as though I was being murdered.

We got all sorts of looks from those I had likely terrified while they sat in the waiting room as we exited the office.

My parents joked that my dad, who was working across the street at the time, had heard my shreeks.

I don’t really believe in karma but I do believe what the Bible says about reaping what we sow — which is kind of the same thing — and boy did I finally get mine!

More than thirty years later.

During my older kids’ well-child checks I had determined we would go ahead and ensure both were up to date with immunizations and ready for kindergarten. Get ahead of the curve and one more thing crossed off my list.

My daughter, having her shots the previous year, was good to go save for the flu shot we were dreadfully late having done. My son, on the other hand, was staring down the barrel of three boosters PLUS his flu shot.

Four total.

While he tends to be overly dramatic about most things, he’s always been a trooper where shots are concerned (my daughter? not so much) so I had determined he would go first.

BIG MISTAKE!

Suddenly I was taken right back to my own kinder immunization experience: the freak out beginning before the nurse even entered the room, wrestling him into submission and screaming bloody murder amplifying with each injection.

THEN, just for added measure, my daughter who is always drama about shots went into hyped up panic mode. Cue the freak out, wrestling, and screaming….part 2.

After we had sufficiently terrified the entire clinic, my children zombie walked out the door like their legs no longer worked properly and they soothed their wounds with lollipops in the car at 9am.
And me?

I soothed my own mental angst by dropping them with the sitter and walking around Target with a Starbucks coffee.

If only my own mother had been able to do the same….