A friend told me he found his baby’s vaccinations traumatic. A neighbour said she cried the first time her baby had a vaccination. Kaylin had received vaccinations the day she was born and the day after but I wasn’t witness to either of them, so when it came time for more injections (yes, plural), I wasn’t sure how I would respond.
Can I first say how amazed I am at the number of vaccinations that are recommended for babies nowadays? The paediatrician gave me a list charting Kaylin’s injections right up to about two years or something and it is long. Also, they’re really expensive, but that’s my fault because we went to a paed as opposed to a GP.
I guess moments like this are when I’m extra glad for Kaylin’s thunder thighs (said with all my love) because I’m guessing jabs would hurt a lot more if she were skinny. The doctor stuck the needle into one thigh, there was a split-second pause, and then Kaylin opened her mouth and screamed. He did the same to the other thigh and Kaylin screamed so hard her face turned dark purple. I’d never seen someone do that before.
When it was over, I buttoned up Kaylin’s onesie, picked her up and held her, and within seconds, she stopped screaming. Just like that. There wasn’t a tear in her eye – my daughter hardly cries tears, which makes me wonder if most of the time she’s scolding/screaming at me instead of actually crying – and to my relief, there wasn’t a tear in mine either.
I guess I went in pretty matter-of-fact about it because vaccinations are good for Kaylin. At least, they’re supposed to be. And while being a new mother has seen me get emotional and/or panicky from time to time, usually when I imagine something happening to my baby, it seems vaccinations aren’t one of those things. Which is great because we’ve got another doctor’s visit coming up next month.
So because breastfeeding can get a tad boring, especially when you do it so many times in a day, I’ve taken to feeding baby Kaylin in front of the telly. And this is what I discovered on Anderson Cooper 360 today: 12-year-old Greyson Chance’s rendition of ‘Paparazzi’ that landed him on Ellen. It was so funny how Anderson said, “Is this the next Justin Bieber? I still have no idea who Justin Bieber is but here’s Greyson…”
I’m not usually a fan of war films but for The Hurt Locker, I’ll make an exception. Hubby and my brother-in-law told me they found it really slow at some points so maybe that helped keep my expectations in check a little bit, but I thought it was a great movie. And I didn’t think it was slow.
What really made the difference for me here was how specific the story is. While many films about American troops fighting in Iraq/Afghanistan are busy focusing on topics like government conspiracy and terrorism, this simply tells us the story of a bomb technician called Sergeant James and his experiences with his Company, the locals and, well, bombs.
It was refreshing and engaging, perhaps because it was directed by a woman who wasn’t all that interested in blowing things up every chance she got. I don’t know, I’m just guessing. That said, I couldn’t help wondering if maybe Kathryn Bigelow won the Oscar for Best Director, the first woman in Academy Award history to do so, not just because The Hurt Locker is a great movie, but because it was directed by a woman.
I’ve never made a movie but I imagine it takes a special kind of woman to tell a bunch of men how to play guns and bombs and soldiers. She must have learned a thing or two from ex-hubby and filmmaking (demi?)god James Cameron, who she beat en route to her victory. And in doing so, she not only showed those macho-types how to make a war film, she goes down in my book as the woman who got the biggest one-up-over-your-ex ever.
