This morning I brought Asher to his 1 year well baby check-up. It’s a month late, but I had to give his earlier appointment to Jude so Jude could have his required history and physical before his surgery and MRI. Asher is doing great, but I didn’t realize how little he is. He’s at the 5th percentile for height; 10th percentile for weight and 50th percentile for head size. I know he burns a lot of calories chasing after his big brothers. He got several pokes today — all the standard immunizations. I was all set to have them give him the flu shot (actually they were just ready to stab him with it) when I learned we’d have to come back in a month for a booster shot. No thanks. Hopefully that was the right call. Then, after they got done stabbing him with needles, they told me that I needed to take him down to the lab for a finger prick for a hemoglobin check, which is standard at the 12 month appointment. No thanks, again. I told them I had expected they would do the finger prick at the same time as the other needle jabs so we would be skipping that one as well.  Seriously. Who comes up with these non-kid-friendly procedures at children’s clinics? Maybe I’m just more sensitive to this stuff given everything Jude has been through, but it seems so obvious to me to do all the pokes at the same time.