It was my turn to take the baby to the doctor’s today. In the waiting room there were many other babies, buggies and gurgles. I recognised a couple from the hospital, who had their boy on the same day that my daughter was born. He was sitting there in a white sleep suit, tiny dome-like baldy head, wee legs waggling. When I lifted my daughter out of her pram, a great long thing with a full head of hair and a snappy pair of dungarees on they must have thought ‘What the fuck?!!’
That’s right. The baby is huge. I stripped the baby off and the health visitor put her on the scales. In the nip, she weighs in at 14lbs 11oz. That is over a stone. The couple in the waiting room must have been worried that my daughter was going to eat their kid.
The baby started to cry as I fiddled her vest back on. It was as if she knew what was coming. The health visitor got me to sit the baby on my lap, and I held her hands as the health visitor injected her in one leg. She started to scream. The health visitor then injected her in the other leg. The baby, the poor little pudding that she is, could only sit there with her hands in mine as the second needle went in. There were real tears and everything.
That’s right. The baby is huge. I stripped the baby off and the health visitor put her on the scales. In the nip, she weighs in at 14lbs 11oz. That is over a stone. The couple in the waiting room must have been worried that my daughter was going to eat their kid.
The baby started to cry as I fiddled her vest back on. It was as if she knew what was coming. The health visitor got me to sit the baby on my lap, and I held her hands as the health visitor injected her in one leg. She started to scream. The health visitor then injected her in the other leg. The baby, the poor little pudding that she is, could only sit there with her hands in mine as the second needle went in. There were real tears and everything.
It's amazing to me how fast adults learn to distinguish between an unhappy cry and a HURT cry. It is a bone-chilling change in tone that every child care giver knows-and dreads.
ReplyDeleteWhile my days of hearing crying children in the ER are long gone, I hear a similar vocalization from the dogs. I can tell a play growl from a "Oh, you've done it now!" growl the instant it is uttered.
Dogs, unlike humans, do not fake a cry of pain, so I am spared having to figure out the real reason for the crying-I am just stuck figuring out how bad the hurt is. I don't envy a parents' having to go through that kind of decision making process