Germbusters

We really didn't mean to turn this blog into one of those "Look how wonderful our child is!" blogs.

But today he was pretty impressive.

After his check-up on Monday, we looked around to see if any agencies or other entities had the H1N1 vaccine so that he could get the first dose.  (Apparently, for children under 10 years of age, they give a half-dose, followed by a booster half-dose at least 28 days later.  We obviously wanted to get him started so we could get the calendar moving on the second shot.)  As it turns out, the Baltimore County Department of Health was having a clinic today, by appointment, at their offices.  And since I'm on duty today, I got to take him.

I did not anticipate the crowds, which is my fault.  But Nicholas handled himself marvelously through the whole process.  He didn't notice that there was no parking (as long as we're moving, he can't really tell that we're just circling the parking lot, and circling, and circling ...).  The DOH did a good job, considering that this is probably a more massive public outreach than they're used to, and the fact that they had to reconceptualize all of their office space to do it.  There was a logjam at the door, because they weren't letting people upstairs to the offices unless they'd made an appointment.  Then there was a logjam in the elevator lobby upstairs because that's where they set up the paperwork.  Then we had to stand on line to wait to be admitted to the waiting area.

Notice how I haven't mentioned Nicholas's behavior once yet, because he was totally fine through all of this.  When I sat down to fill out the form, he tried to grab the form and the pen from me, but otherwise he was perfectly content.  He watched the older kids (meaning 2-5 years old) moving around.  Actually, now that I mention it, all of the kids were well-behaved.  Almost none were crying on the way out, after having gotten the shot.  The only one my part of the line noticed was one who only got upset when his father tried to put his jacket on.  These kids definitely earned their "I'm a Germ Buster!" stickers today.

Once in the waiting area, I finally got to sit down (by the way, he is getting heavy).  As an aside, they had an episode of Sesame Street on for the kids, and the only thing I noticed was how young Bob looked compared to seeing him on the Thanksgiving Day parade last week (he has his own website ... who knew?)  Turns out the episode was from 1985, which explains it.

Anyway, things moved pretty well.  They even handled our detour to get an OK from a physician pretty well.  Nicholas got flagged because of one of his shots from Monday, but it turns out that it's fine for the shot rather than the nasal spray.  He cried for about 30 seconds after the shot, and then was happy again, at least until I tried to put him in the car.  All told, it only took about 40 minutes, which is not bad considering how many people (and especially kids) they were moving through.  But it involved sitting and waiting patiently, which are not often traits associated with six-month-olds, so Nicholas has earned a gold star for the day, and the admiration of his father.