got ink?

OK so, I'm anti-tattoo.  I really am . . . I mean, come on, it's permanent.  Aside from the whole your-body-is-a-temple thing, it's going to be on your body forever.  For-ev-er, like they say in "The Sandlot".  How do you know that you're still going to love one design, one picture, one icon so much in 5, 20, 40 years?  I don't have shoes that I'd want to wear for the next 65 years.  And then, even if you really do love it, your body changes and sags and doesn't stay quite so . . . boyant . . .over time (not mine, mind you, but I hear that happens to some people) and what was once an eagle, 30 years later looks like a parakeet.  True story:  ask my father-in-law.

However, that being said, I love the arm band tattoos.  Tattooes?  Tats-however you spell them-those suckers are just hot.  'Specially done around a really great manly bicep, oooh I'm a total sucker for manly biceps.  It's the first thing I notice about people.  Sure wish I could get some myself <-----well, at least a womanly bicep.  And, I probably do have them, they're just hidden under 18 pounds of underarm flab.  Well, hopefully only 17 pounds after this week.  Anyway, I digress.

The arm band tattoos=hot.  Sexy.  Still so permanent, but just so dang likeable.  And though I'd never encourage my loved ones to get real ones, I just can't balk when they want the fakies.  I guess, one could argue that  it encourages them to think tattoos are ok.  I guess, it could instill in them the thought that body ink is OK and acceptable.  But just let me be a bit of a hypocrite here.

Last week, Sean had his annual wellness check up.  And with check ups, sometimes comes vaccinations.  This particular son of mine has a huge fear of needles.  In hindsight, perhaps it was wrong of me, but I knew he'd be getting the newest chicken pox shot and I decided to warn him ahead of time, to prepare him.  I thought it might make it easier if he knew it was coming.

Doy.

It didn't help.  Days before his appointment he was already stressing about it.

Will it hurt?  How long will it hurt?  How long is the needle?  How bad are chicken pox, really?

We tried all kinds of tactics to prepare him, reverse psychology, the fact that his younger brothers had all their shots recently (and Cameron didn't even flinch!), that two weeks of chicken pox is really the pits, and so on and so on.  Didn't help. 

The only thing Dan could come up with was a teeny bribe of an arm band tattoo if he was brave enough to get his shot.

So see, it served a righteous purpose. . . right?

Anyway, we got to the appt early (cuz that's me, if I'm not 10 minutes early, I feel late) and of course then proceeded to sit there for 50 minutes until Sean's name was called.  'Course he's getting more and more nervous by the minute, not quite understanding why his appt time had come and gone and we were still sitting there and the fact that three families came in and signed in after us and were called while we were still sitting there and how we purused through the totally odd selection of magazines available in a Pediatrician's office (The Money Times anyone?  light reading?) and we were still sitting there and by the time Sean's name was finally called, he was a nervous wreck.

They do all the necessary things, height, weight, blah blah blah, doc comes in, checks him out, everything's great other than he has a bit of an intestinal virus going on and needs to be put on the BRAT diet (bread, rice, applesauce, and toast) and then of course it's time for THE SHOT.

My 9 year old child literally started whimpering.

Now, part of me wants to coddle and cuddle, tell him it's all right, hold his hand, be there with a quick hug, whatever.  But another part of me knows of course that a shot is not a big deal, it'll be over in a second, and all this worry will have been for nothing.  You know, buck up, lil' camper!

So the PA brings in the one syringe and he about hyperventilates.  She tucks his left arm under hers and I literally heard the word "wahhh!" escape his lips.  I kept telling him to just look away, turn his head, don't look at the size of the needle (which was teeny) and get it over with.

Finally and mercifully, the PA does it quickly and in mid "wahhh!" he stops, turns with a shocked look on his face and declares, "That was a shot??  You call that a shot?"

I was rolling on my chair.  It was the funniest thing.  All that stress and worry and completely unecessary anxiety over a pinprick that lasted approximately .00038 of a second.

I guess he was associating the 'shot' with the IVs he'd had to get last year in the hospital after our car accident.  He was envisioning a prolonged poke poke poke as they searched for veins in his inner arm (though I had assured him previously it would be up near his shoulder).

Anyway, thank heavens that was over and hopefully the needle phobia was overcome (until he has to get an actual IV for any reason, sigh).

SO, we let the kids get the arm band tattoos for fun.  For reward.  For bribe.  For the sake of hotness. (at least, Danny's)   That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Oh. . . and I got one too.  =)

PS:  I have absolutely nothing against anyone else who chooses to have tattoos.  I know and love many of you who do.  I'm just saying for me and my house, it's a no go.