Pin Cushion Colin

As I've discussed before, Colin is of what we would call a "slender" build. So slender in fact that he isn't even on the charts. When we still lived in VA, our pediatrician started to become a little concerned about Colin's lack of weight gain at his 6-month well check. We watched him carefully over the summer and he started picking back up. Even though she felt better about Colin's weight, Dr. Shannon wanted us to take him in to see a new pediatrician once we got settled down here.

Before we had the chance to get in to see our new pediatrician for a weight check Colin got sick. When we finally made it to the new doctor's office, she was more than a little concerned with his weight and had us schedule a trip to a lab to get some blood work done to see if there were any underlying metabolic reasons for his lack of weight gain.

On October 12th, the day that David & Lala came down for Sean's birthday weekend, Colin and I headed out to the lab at "O'Dark Thirty". He was pleasantly surprised to be woken up by his mommy and to go on a special trip just the two of us. I was just happy that Dunkin Donuts was open for my caffeine fix! Once again, Colin made lots of friends all over the lab - from the receptionist to other patients to all of the nursing staff and even the administrator. Which ended up being a good thing once they started to draw blood from my baby.Meaghan - our "vampire" was a very nice lady, and felt really bad about making Colin cry. We also had the administrator of the clinic in the room with us helping to hold Colin still. After unsuccessfully attempting to draw blood from his left arm, Meaghan moved on to his right arm, once again meeting with failure. We then moved to the EKG room which had a bed that I could sit on while holding my little guy. While we were waiting for the EKG room to be cleaned the administrator offered Colin a lollipop. At first I balked at the idea of my 10 month old eating a lollipop - especially at 8 am! However, with all of the trauma and crying happening, I gave in. Let's just say Colin is a big fan of the Tootsie Pop!

When we got in the room, they draped a big blanket on my lap and went for Colin's foot. They told me the foot bleeds a lot - hence the blanket to cover my clothes. Well, I guess other feet bleed a lot, but Colin's does not! Our final attempt came on Colin's middle finger. Thar she blows! We got a live one with his finger - and of course after we got all of the blood we needed then his finger wouldn't stop bleeding! As you can see from this picture, my boy was none the worse for the wear - just looked pretty funny with all of the bandages!