Hard to believe Jake was three months old on Monday, where has the time gone already? I was thinking back to Joshua at that age today and remembered a somewhat amusing encounter with a health visitor in clinic which always makes me smile.
As Joshua was my first born and also a small, underweight baby, I would go and have him weighed much more regularly than I have with my other two children. He must have been around 4 months or so on this particular occasion and after stripping him down to weigh him (which I remember him not being very impressed with at the time), I began to dress him whilst attempting to make idle chit chat with the health visitor over the din of his protesting cry.
“So, how are you finding it all?” she asked. “Oh you know, muddling through but we’re getting there!” I answered. “Oh that is good” she replied. “How is he feeding then? Any problems on that front?”….”No, he’s doing great actually…” I responded rather loudly over the increasing volume of my screaming baby. “Oh fabulous, glad to hear it…so what about sleeping? Is he sleeping through yet?” “Yes actually, just started a few weeks ago thank goodness!”….”Brilliant.” she replied…”And how are his erections?”…..
I paused for a moment, slightly surprised by the sudden turn in questioning, but being a first time mother assumed this must be standard protocol..”Oh, erm, yes, fine thank you.” I answered somewhat bashfully on my son’s behalf. “Great..and how many has he had now?” How many? How many? What a strange question I thought and quite frankly I didn’t have a clue but I knew it was a lot. “Oh gosh, he’s had loads…” I replied, wondering why on earth she would expect me to be keeping a tally. “Loads?!” replied the health visitor. I suddenly felt unnecessarily worried as I saw a rather shocked look cross her face. “Yes” I replied concerned. The health visitor looked baffled. “Does he have something wrong with him?” she quizzed. “No!”, I replied rather defensively and with increasing concern…”Why is that not normal then?” I asked anxiously. I mean, how was I to know? I’d never had a baby before. Oh gosh, maybe it’s a testosterone problem…”Well no, not really” she responded “How old is he now?”, “He’s just over four months” I replied. “Well at that age he should only really have had three!”. THREE?!! Three?! How very specific! Three erections is all he should have had?! But he must have had over a hundred I thought, my mind racing…oh dear…this was bad…!
As Joshua finally calmed down, and a normal volume of conversation was able to resume, I thought I’d better check that I’d heard right..”I’m sorry Sarah, just to be sure…could you repeat what you asked again?”. “Of course” she replied, “I asked…..how were his injections?!”
Oh how we laughed….
