I explained to our five year old we would be dropping in (breezily) at the Doctor’s office to get an immunization she was meant to be given at her five year check-up but due to inclement-needle-jabbing weather and the nurse being ill, new super-bugs rendering our current antibodies ineffective, we were unable to do any one-stop-stabbing that day.

I had to make the drop in seem like a cake-walk, adding it to a list of several things we needed to accomplish today. I also chose to use the word “immunization” a lot, avoiding the repetition of the word “needle” for both of our sakes. “We’ll pick up a copy of Despicable Me for our family movie night, stop at the grocery store for a bag of Smartfood to snack on while giggling at the movie and oh yeah, if Mommy doesn’t pass out or vomit, we’ll allow a stranger to stab you with a needle filled with who knows what kind of fluid leaving you to bleed into your Barbie BandAid.”

Ellie is brave. She didn’t flinch when I told her one of our outings would require her to sit very still while someone injected her with something. Brave or, she wasn’t paying attention and thought I said, “We’ll watch Smartfood and then despicable me, I’ll let a nurse give you a needle.”

She happily went into the nurse’s area and removed her arm from her sleeve. She held onto her My Little Pony BandAid and smiled (a nervous smile) so as not to seem like a baby. She was five now, no time for silly antics.

Nurse: What hand do you use for most activities?

Ellie: Like chess?

Ah chess—a game we’ve played three times with varying degrees of success. Yes Ellie, she was wondering what hand you move your pawn with.

Me: Ellie, are you right or left handed?

Ellie: Right handed.

Then the nurse did something that had me looking in the corner for a hidden camera. Instead of quickly proceeding with the injection, she held Ellie by the shoulders, looked her straight in the eyes and began the following dialogue:

Nurse: Ellie, have you ever been stung by a mosquito?

Ellie (looking at me for confirmation): Yes?

Nurse: Well, this is going to hurt a little bit more than that.

Where was she going with this?

Nurse: Has your sister ever pulled your hair?

Ellie: Yes?

Nurse: This isn’t going to hurt as much as that.

Got it, more than mosquito, less than hair tug, fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee…please get on with it!

“Have you ever stubbed your toe, cracked your funny-bone on a table, had a paper-cut, super-glued your fingers together, shoved an eraser up your nose, slammed your head on a rock, taunted a snapping turtle with a stick until you realized his neck was surprisingly long and despite what you might think about turtles as being slow moving creatures, they’re actually quite spritely when being teased…..?”

My brave little girl was now crapping her drawers, cowering under my larger than necessary purse/diaper-bag, a puddle of her former brave-self, fists clenched (mine not hers)I was ready to take the needle into my own hands.

Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that the nurse’s strategy may have been one of fraidy-cat Mom psychology. If she sensed my woozy-aura as I entered the building, perhaps the best way to keep me from collapsing and leaving the staff to deal with my two unpredictable children in tow was to make me very angry, distract me until the ordeal was over leaving Ellie malaria-free and me on two feet.

Just a theory.