Early morning lessons, and maybe some from yesterday

Landon needed a blood draw for allergy testing. I've been putting it off for a month, but his doctor sent a letter that basically said "Hey, 'member when I said he needed this blood draw? I was totally serious, so do it!"

Anyway, I took off work a couple minutes early yesterday, thinking the lab was open until 6, and I picked Landon up and went over there at 5:25 only to find out that they close at 5. I guess I should have called. But they do open at 6:30, so I decided to take him over there this morning.

And based on what happened when he was 3 months old, I think I should have been prepared for the next problem. Um, the phlebotomists that are on the super early morning shift...are apparently not the best sticks - combined with the fact that Landon has deep veins with hiding super powers. Well...they stuck him once in each inner elbow (is there a word for that body part?) with the butterfly looking doo-hickeys with no luck. They asked me what I wanted to do. I asked Landon if we could try again and he said no, I said, if they don't try again we're going to have to come back, and he freaked out about not wanting to come back.

One lady, during the freak out went ahead and stuck him with a more regular looking syringe, no butterfly or long tube, just the little syringey thing and the test tube. They got the blood, then they taped him up.

To his credit, Landon did everything they asked him to do. Even as they were doing the third stick, and he was saying he didn't want to, he was pretty still. He didn't even cry until they told him they might stick him again.

So lesson - if we do this again, we need to come later in the day so we can get the best stick in the place, and also the lollipops I put in my purse were essential for recovery - also, maybe we should bring our own fun bandaids, it's like these people never see children or something.