So I am trying to write this while Piglet naps on my chest (look at me!  Multi-tasking uber-mother!)

He had his first set of immunisations this morning.  This was relatively stress free.  Apparently some women are so distressed by the sight of a huge (relative to size of baby) needle being stuck in their baby’s thigh that they cannot do the required job of holding baby down while the pain is inflicted and have to get their husbands to do it.

Not so with me.  Not that I have a husband anyway so I didn’t have much choice.  To be honest, I did feel a bit sorry for Piglet as he screamed, looking at me with imploring eyes, as if pleading with Mummy to make it all better, which I obviously had no intention of doing.  Poor Piglet.  He doesn’t know that now, because of Mummy’s cruelty, he will probably not die of whooping cough, diphtheria or any of the other Victorian ailments he is now inoculated against.

He might get TB though.  At least that was what the nurse implied when she asked if he had had his BCG vaccination and I innocently said I was under the impression he didn’t need one.  Apparently we are in a “high risk area.”  I’d better not take him to any public places just in case someone breathes TB onto him.  Can you even get TB by being breathed on?  I don’t know.  How did that nun in Call the Midwife get it?  I guess it was just floating around in the air in the 1950s.

Another reason I was practically drummed out of the surgery was that I admitted that I hadn’t brought any spare nappies so Piglet would have to be weighed in his.  I wasn’t sure which would make me look less of a neglectful mother; Piglet remaining in his nappy throughout, or taking off said wet nappy and then putting it back on.  I decided that the latter was just too cruel, which did not go down at all well with the nurse, who practically accused me of deliberately hiding my baby’s lack of weight gain.  I mean, how much does a wet nappy weigh?  Quite a lot, admittedly, but certainly not enough to have Piglet slipping off the percentile scale entirely.  I mean, there wasn’t even any poo in it.

Anyway, I am now trying to ward off the need for Calpol (recommended by every mother, ever, and indeed everyone who has ever even spoken to a mother, for preventing babies getting a fever after their vaccinations) by cuddling Piglet constantly and trying to keep him asleep for as long as possible, as the nurse also admonished me rather sternly when I, again in my innocence, asked if it would be OK to give Piglet Calpol if he developed any signs of a fever, saying that Calpol was not suitable for babies of his youth.  God, parenting is a minefield.

Hopefully I was able to ward off a call to social services by breastfeeding Piglet immediately after the jabs.  Surely that will win me some points the amount everyone bangs on about how great it is and how it should be done exclusively until the child is at least sixteen.