He's baaaack

Xaiden and I picked Xander up from Mustang on Thursday afternoon, and we were so happy to see him. Xaiden had a bunch of smiles for big brother, his face just lit up when he saw Xan. It was too cute. One of the first things we did when we got home was to give Xander a haircut. He'd been growing it out for a long time, but there was absolutely no style to it, so I told him that we could cut it like Poppa's or I could try (try being the keyword here) to trim it up. He chose for me to trim it. Apparently I forgot to mention to him that I have zero haircutting skills. I had been just trimming the back and around his ears, but it was beginning to look like he had a helmet instead of hair, so I decided to try to do a fade on the bottom part. After working on it for probably ten minutes, Jason came in and asked what I was doing to the poor kid, took one look at his hair, then confiscated the clippers from me. So, he ended up with a haircut like Poppa's but a little longer and a bit of a fade in the back. Thank goodness for Poppa :)

He looks like a totally different kid. We told him he could grow it back out if he wants and he's happy because it's still long enough to use gel.

So, Xander is starting preschool next month for one day a week. I need to get him enrolled by June 1st, so my welcome home present to him was immunizations the day after he got home. He wanted to know why we were going to the doctor, and I wanted to be honest with him, but I also wanted to actually get him there without dragging him through the door, so I told him she was going to give him his immunizations. I'm not sure what he thought it was, but it got him into the exam room. Once we got in there, and the nurse had the shots ready; I explained what she was going to do. It was quite clear at this point that he had failed to obtain clarification as to what immunizations actually were, and he did his very best to opt out. She told him he had to get them to go to school. So, he decided he didn't want to go to school. She told him he would get his friends sick. He said that he didn't mind if they got sick. Then she showed him pictures of kids who had things like measles and mumps. They were pretty nasty pics and I took him over to them so he could get a close up view. At this point, he started crying because he knew he didn't want what they had in those pictures, but he also knew that he didn't want to get poked in the leg. He was in an impossible situation. He decided his only chance was to stall. Once I sat him on the table and she started leaning him back, he tried the, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait..." but then he didn't have anything to tell us. And that was the end of the stalling and the beginning of the squawling. He screamed when she cleaned his legs, he screamed (rightfully so) when she gave the shots, he screamed when she put on the band-aids, and he screamed for quite awhile afterward. He also told her that he didn't like her anymore. Luckily, it wasn't our regular nurse, because I'm quite sure he's gonna hold a grudge about this one. She said that she can usually just tell them, "No, this is how it is" and then do it, but that he just broke her heart. Xander was quite put off by the whole thing and was probably glad to hear that her heart was broken. He didn't want a sticker, he didn't want an ice cream, and it hurt to sit in the car (especially the bumps). Fortunately, Grammy was with us to hold his hand all the way home and carry him into the house once we got there. After about fifteen minutes of being home, he was jumping on the trampoline and swimming in his pool. I guess having fun was more important than getting sympathy. After all, we've got to keep our priorities straight.