No Swine Flu for Yours Truly

Well, I finally figured out that there's a "Blog I'm Following" feature on Blogspot, where I can enter my favorite blogs and be notified on my "Blogger Dashboard" when they write something new. Yeah, it only took me a year and a half to figure this out. Good lord.

As I write this, my little boy is fast asleep in his swing - hallelujah! He's had a big day - we left the house bright and early this morning to drive to Venice and stand in line to get our H1N1 vaccines. LA County is having free clinics for 1) people without insurance and 2) people in the high-priority groups. As parents of an under-6-month-old, we qualify for one of these criteria, so GIMME my shot, people!

We arrived promptly at nine, only to discover a line wrapping around the block. We was waiting patiently when an organizer came walking down with a loudspeaker, telling pregnant women to come to the front of the line for the thimerosol-free version of the vaccine. I popped up and asked her if breastfeeding allowed me to quality for the mercury-free shot, as my pediatrician had told me to get it in that formulation.

She looked at me and must have taken pity as I stood there in the chilly ocean morning air, shivering in my short-sleeves (hey, it's hot in West Hollywood) and jiggling my sleeping infant in my arms. "Come with me" she said, and the next thing I knew my husband and I were escorted to the front of the line, where we waited while she asked the resident doctors if breastfeeding entitled me to the preservative-free shot. Turns out that it didn't, as they only had limited quantities specifically for pregnant women, and evidently the CDC has publicly declared that thimerosol does not enter breastmilk, so there is no risk with the regular shot. No matter - we were already at the front of the line, and got in and out in no time. I rationalized that there is no guarantee that I would have been able to find the preservative-free version anywhere else, so I suppose this will have to be one time that I choose to trust my government agencies, solely for my own peace of mind. We are flying up north in two weeks to visit my parents, so we felt it was important that we be vaccinated before the trip.

I will leave you with a few new pictures, all taken within the past couple of weeks. I hereby vow to be more punctual at posting new shots:

Carter looking startlingly like his Grandpa:


Discovering grass in Grandma's backyard...


...and looking unimpressed. Perhaps he's really a city boy at heart, like his father.