Parsley and Crossed Fingers

So, we waited for close to four hours in line yesterday to get our H1N1 vaccinations. I am annoyed? Yes. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

I'm not so much annoyed that we waited for four hours...I was more annoyed that the municipality's fancy website said the wait would be less than an hour. We could have been prepared for 4 hours but weren't...we were prepared for less than 1.

The plan was for Eric to pick up the kids early from daycare and come get me at work and head out the clinic. I told him to pack drinks and snacks and toys - which he did. We had to make a stop at the garage to pick up our car that was being repaired and while Eric was inside I opened the bag to realize (although I should have known) that my idea of snacks (crackers, granola bars etc) was quite different from Eric's, which was Halloween candy.

Yep...the 18-month old holding a little bag of mini-Doritos and my three-year-old with a Halloween size Pringles with a Twizzler chaser? My kids. (Although they were very happy...so it wasn't all bad.)

Anyway we stood for two hours before being ushered into a waiting room for another half hour. Then we were called to register and ushered to yet another waiting room for another hour. At least the third waiting area was very spacious and even had a supervised play area for kids - complete with volunteers wearing rubber gloves and disinfecting toys every 30 seconds.

After the shot...both my kids screamed as though they were getting their arms cut off...we were ushered to yet another waiting area where we were handed a thimbleful of juice and told to wait for another 15 minutes to make sure we had no adverse reactions.

By the time it was done the kids were fine just plain tired and hungry. Kieran talked about food the entire way home. He wanted pizza, noodles and french fries with ketchup. "And when I get big like a grownup, I want to eat hamburgers, pop and coffee and drive a car." They fought over a single stale rice cake that was kicking around the van. We got home and while I was unbuckling Kaya from her seat, Kieran was standing in the rain on the doorstep eating the parsley that is (inexplicably) still growing in a pot outside the door.

But anyway...it's done (although the kids have to go back in three weeks for a second shot). I know the shot is not going to be everybody's choice. It's surrounded by controversy and mismanagement and some unknown risks...but I do know this. I know that if it was one of my kids who ended up on a ventilator in the ER I would never forgive myself. I do know that the regular seasonal flu that kill hundreds of thousands every year does not kill otherwise healthy 13 year old hockey players. So, I can wait 4 hours for a shot or wait 4 hours in an Emergency waiting room to see a doctor to get Tamiflu when they do get it.

It's a crapshoot and I made my choice. Fingers crossed that it was the right one.