Blood from a Stone

Actually, it was blood from Micah, but just as difficult. I have been holding on to Sofia's 2-year checkup lab test order for a few months now, and Micah has his allergy re-check in a few weeks. Quest Diagnostics just opened a walk-in lab in Framingham, and I figured I'd go see if they could handle the orders (Sofia's stays in Framingham, but Micah's has to go back to Newton-Wellesley, and when David gets his blood workups, it's gotta get back to Bridgewater). If there was one place they could all go, locally, that'd be great.

So after gymnastics, we dropped Ben at his house and I took Micah and Sofia over to the lab. It took the phlebotomist, S, a while to enter all the info into the computer (and then she found out she didn't need to type in the items for the RAST test individually). Micah was getting a wee bit nervous. So he wanted Sofia to go first.

Sofia did great. S had a tough time finding a vein, and actually had to poke her twice, once on each arm, but my little princess barely cried - more from fear of the rubber gloves and discomfort at the tie around her arm. She did great. But Micah just got more and more nervous.

Then it was his turn. OY. It took forever to get him into my lap, forever to get him to pick an arm (and then he kept changing his mind), he started kicking and screaming. It was just not pretty. S got the needle in fairly easily, but as she was switching to the second vial, I noticed that her hands were shaking like crazy (they hadn't been when she did the stick). I was sweating and dizzy. Micah was just a maniac.

Whew.

So we finally got him out of there. I had promised to get him a new game for the Nintendo if he did this (hey, we got the blood out, right?), so we went to the mall. Selecting a game took FOREVER (although now he's happily showing it to Sam). Then I took them over to Stride Rite and Sofia got new shoes. Micah tried on sandals and sneakers, but was unsatisfied. As expected.

The day started off just as terrific. Both boys were in bed with me; Micah had pee'ed in my bed, so everything smelled; I had a horrible itch on my back and David is away, so I ended up going to my doctor thinking I had some sort of rash (it's just dry skin); Sam had a hissy fit this morning because he could not find sweat pants that fit him - I explained that I've looked everywhere and cannot find his size, and he screamed "You have to look harder!". I made him wear one of the many pairs of courderoys in his closet. Eventually he calmed down, but it really set me off. Oh, and I forgot to put coffee in my espresso machine, so I got plain water instead.

But Sofia did fall asleep before I went to pick up Micah and Ben, so I had them eat their lunch as a picnic in the gym parking lot, and sent them inside while I stayed in the car doing puzzles and relaxing a bit.


After the mall, we picked up Sam at Tae Kwan Do, and we took the pretty (and slightly longer) route home near Wayside Inn. It was a nice drive. And I dropped off the DVD I made for J. I want this to be my new business: taking people's home movies and phots and putting them on DVD. It's fun.

The boys are playing Scooby Doo on the Nintendo, Sofia is exploring the clean laundry, my sheets and blanket are being washed. Sam and I had sushi, Micah had Mac & Cheese, Sofia had lots of stuff. (Oh, and her first food avoidance - she refused the honey carrots today, adamantly.)

The kids are off for Shavuot tomorrow and Thursday. Tomorrow morning I am co-leading the preschool service at TI. Sofia's DevSpec. is going to meet us at shul (I'll put them in a nursery school room) at noon, and we'll eat lunch there. Then the mother's helper is coming to watch Micah and Sofia while I take Sam to his therapist.

David just got to Quebec (he was in Montreal yesterday and most of today). He's coming home tomorrow night. He sounds tired and sad.