Why My Two Year Old Will Most Likely Be Rejected from Kindergarten

So I fancy myself a pretty responsible gal. I always handed my homework in on time. I took hot meals to shutins with my church youth group. I was a girl scout. I pay my bills on time and help old people get things from high shelves (no joke, I can't tell you how many times some old person in my apartment building has asked me to get something off a high shelf for them because I am ginormous).

But when it comes to my baby's medical care, I am so totally paralyzed by fear that I border on negligent. I guess it's fear. Maybe it's laziness. But I think the odds are a lot greater that it's fear.

I forgot her 18 month appointment. I guess...? I mean, honestly, I'm not sure I knew that she needed to have one. Did the doctor actually mention that at her 12 month appointment? Was I so preoccupied with our personal vaccine schedule that I didn't listen? Because usually, I'm pretty genius at listening when people give me instructions. I'm fairly certain the leading contender for my epitaph is currently "Follows Instructions Well." So how is it that I can't kinda get my shit together with getting medical things done for the baby at the right time?

I do, I must admit, lean on the fact that Doc Hubby is in fact, a doctor. Part of me thinks that all of this stuff should just be his responsibility because he has seen the inside of a human body and understands things about it, and it just grosses me out. So despite the fact that "I'm the Mom" I want all that medical stuff to be his department. I don't think he even knows we have departments in this relationship. Except that he always makes the pancakes. And since he never reads my blog, the odds are not good that he is going to become aware of it any time soon.

The day of my daughter's one year doctors appointment (which, if I can read my own handwriting correctly, was well over a month after her first birthday...see what I mean? What is wrong with me?) we took her across the street to a house of vampires where some guy who claims to be a phlebotomist (yeah, that's the kinda vocab I can just toss around because Doc Hubby is in fact, a doctor, and I'd have to be an idiot not to pick up a thing or two over the course of 19 years)stabbed her repeatedly in the arm while she shrieked until finally I grabbed her and fled. Fast forward to a month ago when we happened to see Dr. McJerky in our Peds practice because our wonderful French doctor wasn't in. He managed to make me feel like a total ass because I had staggered my baby's vaccines (it was like he could see the baby slings and BPA free bottles and organic yogurt spewing from my mouth) and never got that blood draw. Which, he insisted, she'd absolutely need for kindergarten. What is with the City of New York? That I can't just enjoy my one year old without worrying about kindergarten. And, by the way, the place they sent us to have it done sucked. And, no one told me I needed it for kindergarten, though I can't say I would have been listening anyway.

So we had the one year blood draw today. Several days after the Bean's second birthday. She screamed bloody murder the entire time. Doc Hubby took one for the team and held her down while the excellent phlebotomist took baby girl's blood (Doc Hubby just had to point out that she did go too deep at first and then had to pull back to hit the vein and I could have lived my whole life and not known that). Then the Bean proceeded to sulk the entire time that Doc Hubby tried to show her off to all the nice people he works with.

Note to self, do not begin this whole path of allowing the Bean's behavior to reflect upon me. I am not responsible for her being two. Or having just been jabbed with a needle.

My Top Ten List So Far

So I've been doing this blogging thing over a year now. I started at Babies Gotta Have It, but then I just got the yen to come here and write some of this stuff that 's going on in my life. I would actually like to write a book, but that's not something I seem to have the discipline to do during naps.

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately. Some of them are good. Really surprisingly good. Some are interesting and some are educational and some are funny. Really surprisingly funny. Like laugh out loud funny when you've been out to dinner with friends and you had that really strong mojito and you're really a teetotaler and you come home and your baby and husband are sleeping in nearby rooms and your apartment is really small but you're laughing in bursts through your nose like you've got the giggles up in the balcony in church kind of funny.

So this gal over at Piece o' Coconut Cake had the idea to create a top ten list of her favorite posts for her readers to check out while she's visiting her family in Guatemala. Let me just say, why doesn't my family live somewhere tropical and lush instead of somewhere that Puritans and farmers decided to remove rocks from and endure. Anyway, when you're up late reading blogs and eating thin mints and you want to meet some new bloggers, check out her list and the links at the end of her post.

I haven't actually written all that much in the last ten months. But I do have more than ten entries. So I went back through and scanned them and reread them. Here are the ten I like the best today.

1. My Apology to the Girl at the Cruise Lines Audition My first post. Why and how I got into all this.
2. What Does It Mean to Eat Your Children The post I wrote the day I stopped breastfeeding.
3. Left Wing Butterflies Baby's First Birthday Post.
4. Taking the A Train With My Baby New York, motherhood, and avoiding the culture of fear.
5. Pole Dancing and Drag Shows That's just how I roll.
6. The Apocalypse The Mayans and the end of the world.
7. Lock Up Your Craft Scissors What happened when I cut my baby's hair. This became a weekly series.
8. Pa Ingalls and My Responsibility Project When littering meets Halloween.
9. Yes We Did. The video I took of people celebrating election night in the streets of New York.
10. The Bouncing Remote, Baby TV and Why Doesn't My 17 Month Old Walk
    
    
    And as an extra bonus. A Conversation Late Last Night. This is short. It speaks for itself.
    
    Thanks for reading. Want to get a coffee?