Saturday 9 May 2009


Even at the ripe old age of 30-something, there are lots of occasions when I can't quite believe that I am an adult and I think: 'Hey, what on earth happened? How come I have to be the responsible person here? Who made me the adult?' And today was one of these days.

For the first time today, I had to take George for a measles jab. Now I won't bore the non-Britons with the details but basically in the UK, the national health service insist on children having a combined vaccine called MMR (measles, mumps, rubella). A few years ago, a doctor did some research and informed the world that this vaccine was linked to autism. He has been discredited since then, but being a fully-paid-up-got-the-T-Shirt member of the middle class, I decided to pay privately for single jabs instead just in case, you know. So we turned up at a terribly posh Harley Street address along with other similarly-intentioned parents. George sat on a mini-Verner Panton chair and was offered cartoons, giant chocolate buttons and some jelly babies (see, I told you it wasn't the NHS). The doctor giving him the injection was young and blonde, so George was in 7th heaven - he is obsessed with blondes -yes, he's 18 months old and a player.

As I held him and she administered the injection I suddenly had a flash of: 'What? Isn't someone else going to hold his hand? Isn't someone else going to think of all the clever questions to ask the doctor?' but no, there was just me and DH, rolling our eyes at each other at the madness of it all. Welcome to parenthood.

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