En vacances à la campagne sous la neige à manger du gras et à enfiler des pulls* …

* tricotés par ma maman pour Virgile …

The thing is, you will never be prepared enough to this kind of appointment.
When you have a baby, each day brings its bunch of events that you have never been prepared to. The first tears, the first look, the first diaper, the first smile. You are like an astronaut dropped on a never seen before moon, and it is your mission to discover it, to understand it, any corner of it, any side, any light, any shadow. You ask yourself, in the secret of your thick space suit, ‘will I get through this?’, ‘will I get through that?’. Everyday and a million of times, you wonder why you are such a looser, because you do not have a bottle warmer, or the teat runs too fast, oh and you miss at least two pajamas because the moon grow too big.
But you get through all that, and one day you are that close to think that your life is normal again. Until you dress your baby for the itchy winter and tell him he will have to be strong because you are taking him to the doc and his bad, his nasty needles.
The baby is ready, and he is so calm and adorable in his winter suit, his cute little face warmly wrapped up in a peruvian wool cap. While closing your door, you have a vague feeling that this will not be the funniest side of the moon, but you are strong, you just went through two months of moon-diaping, moon-breast-feeding, moon-consoling. You will survive the moon-vaccining.

Or not.

You undress the baby on the doc table, and the baby is such a cute bee, babbling, his flying saucers eyes wide open in yours. You give your saddest smile to him, and you call yourself a traitor, while the doc asks you to hold his hands because he is not going to enjoy it. So you firmly grab the two little fits and you take a plunge into his eyes, you keep talking to him, hoping he will not notice what is happening. And the first needle hits the right side of your moon. Your baby’s eyes are still stuck to your face but in a second his face freezed and turned completely red, and a scream that you have never heard before from that sweet little mouth you love so much explodes and bursts your heart. You have no choice. You cry.

You stop talking because you know your trembling voice is going to betray you. The second needle hits the left side of your moon and it’s all screams and tears, and the baby seems to ask you why you are doing this to him. One could not say wich one was the baby. The little one screaming on the doc table, or the big one with the wet eyes who was holding the fits of the little one.

I bent over him and kissed his forehead, telling him it’s okay, everything’s fine, and I knew he could not hear me and I was just consoling myself.

And then the doc said I could dress the baby, he was done. I hold my little Virgile in my arms to console him. He put his head on my shoulder, and his right arm caught my neck more firmly that I never felt before. And just like that, I went through the moon-vaccining.

I may be an astronaut, I am also his mother.