It’s been a very long day today. The day started off nice enough, the weather was somewhat warm, and it was nice and dry at least the first half of the day. Unfortunately today happened to be Thor’s four month checkup at the doctor’s, and that means, you guessed it, more shots.

He did ok with them at the time, he cried a bit in the office afterward, but promptly fell asleep as soon as we put him back into the stoller to leave. He seemed mostly okay until mid evening just about the time the tylenol was starting to wear off, and then he started getting really grumpy. I am not sure if it’s the shots, or just his usual evening fussiness with the not feeling well from shots on top of it. I am thinking both.

I think getting him his shots is almost as rough on me as it is on him. I know they are necessary, but I always feel so awful having to put him through things that I know hurt and are scary for him. I worry, my husband says, far too much. Maybe I do. All I want is a healthy happy baby. I just really hate to see him cry that way. You’d think it would get easier with him being the fourth baby, but it doesn’t. It’s still hard.

Thor is going to grow up in a completely different world than my older kids did. There are family members my older kids loved that he will never get to see. Sometimes it’s sad to think about it, but he is never going to know what it is like to have a grandpa. He won’t have siblings or even cousins close to his age to grow up with. Sometimes I worry things will be too lonely for him. Part of me doesn’t know if I want any more children, but there’s a small part of me that doesn’t want Thor to grow up all by himself. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have another baby, but the thought of going through yet another pregnancy in my forties really scares me.

I know I can’t always fix everything for him. I can’t shield him from every hurt and disappointment he will face in life, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t some small part of me that wants to. I think all parents have that desire inside them. I just hope that I can balance my need to protect him, with giving him the room he is going to need to grow. I want to be loving and not smothering. I want to help him grow strong and not hold him back from the hard things he will need to do for himself, on his own, to help him grow.

You’d think I’d have the answers by now but I don’t. My past mistakes have taught me more of what not to do, than what I should do now. There’s not magic book of instructions to give us all the answers. I guess we all just have to do the best we can, and hope in the end it’s enough.