Our poor little Peanut has had a bad day. (The pictures in this post have nothing to do with anything. They are just cute pictures of Peanut).

First, a little background. My dad and younger sister are both black belts. They have both taken and taught karate for years. A few years ago, I took a self-defense class from my sister. I remember thinking as I was practicing the moves, “I wonder if I could really do this if I needed to? Would I REALLY use this eye gouge technique?”

Enter “Mommy-Power”. A couple of years ago, in the middle of the night, Ellie woke up screaming. This did not sound like her typical crying, it was more like there was someone in her room trying to get her. Or at least that’s how it sounded in my mostly-asleep ears. I went charging into her room, ready to take on the bad guy. I could even have gouged out his eyes. There was no question in my mind that if my baby was in danger, I could use the lessons my sister had taught me. Lucky for him, there was no bad guy. Just a really bad nightmare.

Today at Peanut’s two month check-up I was ready to use my self-defense skills again. The poor kid has been through a lot. Somehow, he got a string wrapped around one of his tiny toes. I noticed that his toe looked red and swollen a couple of days ago, but wasn’t sure if whatever was causing the problem was still there. I asked the doctor about it today and, sure enough, using a good microscope, she was able to see the string and pull it off. Peanut cried and kicked through the whole procedure, right up until she pulled the last of the string off. It must have felt a lot better. On top of that, Peanut’s little belly-button has not totally healed up yet. so the doctor cauterized it. It didn’t seem to hurt him too much, but his little button is all black now. (She said that was normal and it would be black for a couple of days). That’s not all! Because of Peanut’s background, he needed to have some blood tests done. So three nurses came into the room to draw blood from his tiny arm. They put a tourniquet on him and tried to find a vein. After some poking and prodding, one of the nurses shoved a needle into his arm. She either missed the vein or went right through it, and started moving the needle around in his arm. After about 30 seconds of this, I could feel the “Mommy-Power” coming on. I was thinking, “Okay ladies. Which one of you is going to be first?” She poked around for a minute longer, with Peanut crying so hard he wasn’t breathing, and took the needle out without getting a blood sample.

Then they called in the expert (why didn’t they just start with her, I want to know!). The new nurse felt Peanut’s arm for a second, put the tourniquet on him, drew the blood and was done in less than a minute. Yay!

Unfortunately, this is not all. He then had to get 3 shots. I snuggled him for a while and calmed him down. The nurse giving the shots acted quickly and we were done! Phew!

Needless to say, the poor kid has been taking a long nap this afternoon. I am very grateful for modern medicine, by the way. It’s just hard to watch when it’s applied to such a tiny guy. I’m also grateful to know I’d be brave enough to defend my kiddos if I needed to. Don’t mess with my kids!

By the way, Peanut has gained 2 pounds in the past month! His new medicine and formula have cut WAY back on the spit-up and he’s obviously been keeping more of his food down. He’s now nearly 10 lbs and 21 inches long. (That’s 5th percentile for height and 10th for weight). Way to go, little guy!