Crazy Family Life

This Sunday I (Kenny) went to church by myself without the kids and wife because they were all sick. Well I came home after Sacrament Meeting and Colby's Tonsils were large and had white patches on them. I told Tara that I needed to take him to the after hours doctors, but Colby wasn't having it. "I don't want to get a shot Daddy!" Said Colby. I assured him, even promised that there would be no shots or pain, they just needed to check his throat and give him medicine. He was still concerned...

Things were going fine, until 4 minutes after the Swab of the Tonsils, the nurse came in and said that he was "Very Positive", and the best way to treat it is with a Penicillin Shot in the bum. "Great!" I thought, Colby is never going to trust me again. So I sat him down to explain, and break the news... Well... He didn't take it like the man I had hoped he would be... he is only 4. He was devastated. We walked back to the room, a dad ashamed that he betrayed his sons trust, and a poor boy who was led, like a lamb by a Shearer to the Slaughter, except I was the shearer. I felt terrible.

Well it got funny, the nurse explained that he needed it in the bum, and so I laid him on the table and began pulling his pants down... and he FREAKED OUT! "No daddy not in the bum! do it in my arm, do it in my arm!" He was embarrassed to be showing his bum to a Woman Nurse. I couldn't stop laughing while he screamed, "Do it over my pants!!!! Noooo!"

Well he got it, and he felt violated: Violated by the nurse, and by his father who gave a solemn vow that he would not get a shot. Boy was I feeling like a crappy Father. We had a pretty good heart to heart, and I told him how sorry that I was, and that I was wrong for telling him he wasn't going to get a shot. The cutest thing happened, he looked at me holding back the sobs and said in a choked up 4 year old voice "I was wrong too dad." My heart melted and for a minute my little boy grew up a little in manhood. It was a proud day.

-Kenny