Mexican flu

published: 2009-11-20

Raisins, cookies, and a (small) toy car of his own choice. These are the things I promised my son after cheerily announcing this morning” “guess what? today you are going to get a Mexicam flu shot – Hurray!!” He cried in despair, “oh nooo not the doctoooooor. Not a shot, mamaaaaa.” At midday I reminded him “it’ll hurt for a second. Kind of like a mosquito sting.” (a wasp would not go down well). He grunted and sighed, “you told me that So Many Times.” By late afternoon we were running late and on top of it: it was raining like mad. The waiting room was full of snivelling, coughing and worried looking people. My doctor likes to pretend he does not care about appearances. You should see the state of the carpet and curtains in his waiting room. I never, ever, touch the magazines there. You can only inagine the amount of germs stuck between the pages. And with everyone being soaked, it felt like we were back in the middleages. I put my son on my lap and tried to casually la-dee-daa my way through. By then I was a nervous wreck and convinced this mission was going to fail. But the doctor made a surprise-attack on my son’s arm and that was that. My son even asked whether he had actually already had the shot?
This evening I wondered whether I had done the right thing. What did I just inject my son with? The sole reason I gave him this shot was that the professionals I consulted were clear: I should. I was offered the shot too, but didn’t take it. You do these things to your children because all you want is the very best for them. This must be one of the scarier aspects of motherhood: to think you’re doing good. Yet to know that sometimes, you will be doing the exact opposite.