Today was Charis’s 18 month check up and boy was it a blast! It just started off badly with Charis already feeling a little under the weather so she was a bit cranky (shocking to the grandparents I know). They took her measurements first which she decided was terrible and awful and shared that with us as she screamed. They did share with us that she is the size of a three year old! Next she got to have her finger pricked and blood drawn, which just about did us both in. The nurse asked me to apply pressure to her finger so that it would stop bleeding and of course Charis did not care for this. She was flailing around and screaming. I decided to give up on the “apply pressure” tactic and go for the band-aid and it turns out that Charis totally dislikes band-aids today! She screamed even louder and eventually took it off. Here is the picture for your mind to grasp…I am alone in the room with Charis screaming and there is blood everywhere! Great huh! I went back to the apply pressure method and just held her down until it stopped bleeding then she was happy for about 5 seconds until the doctor came in. Charis usually takes the doctor in stride and just deals with it but this was not the day for that. She was such a mess that he told me that I could just hold her while he listened to her lungs and checked her ears etc. He did say that he got to hear her lungs really well since she was screaming her head off. By the end of the visit I figured that it could not be much worse so I just went ahead and got Charis her flu shot as well, yes that went over fabulously but I was already expecting that by this point in the visit. By the time we made it to the car (you could hear the people in the office breathe a sigh of relief that we were going) Charis and I were both totally exhausted. I tried to think of a treat for her so we headed to McDonalds for a biscuit. This did the trick and she started smiling again. Phew! Six more months until her two-year check up!