real deal grown-up non-fun

Sadly the new big-boy bed comes with amazing access to look out the big windows onto all of Ben's kingdom.  Those 90 year-old windows also surely contain lead paint (somewhere in the layers,) and it didn't take Ben long to take a bite. :(  I was talking to his Nana Pat on the phone when he ran up to me spitting out white paint chips saying, "we don't eat paint Mommy."
I tried to make it immediately and painfully clear that, "NO! We don't eat paint!"  Of course my mind started wandering and I started researching and based on living in an old neighborhood and near a major street with a kid who eats dirt, I was convinced we'd been slowly poisoning our son.
I called the Dr. and requested a lead level test and she immediately had one ordered at "the lab."
"Uh-oh," I thought.  "The lab," was the response I'd feared as I'd hoped they could do the draw right in the Dr's office.
Well we went to the lab at the nearby hospital and the tech suggested Ben give it a go in the big-person blood draw chair.  I thought she was absolutely crazy as he'd have full view of the draw going on and also asked if we could just do a heel stick like when he was tiny in the NICU.  She chuckled in response and before I knew it, that big long needle was in Ben's arm and he was SCREAMING and crying REAL tears!! The fun part came when he pulled his arm away, (I was simultaneously holding his head and other arm,) and she re-stuck him real quick-eeeeeeek!!! I'd been wondering, "HOW much blood she was going to take, " and "Does he have any blood left?"
The amount she drew after the re-stick was negligible but soon enough the horror ended. 
As we walked out and the tears continued to poor long after the crying stopped and Ben repeated, "Mommy, Ben is so so so so so so so so so so sad."
If only he knew I was more sad than he'd ever be.  We stopped for a special vanilla milk and special soft basketball for his new hoop and I'm sure he forgot the whole thing and I clearly never will.
Thankfully the results came back without a trace of lead! Whooo hooo! Ryan and I will sleep better and we'll all pray the six month follow-up test can indeed be done at the Dr's office at his 4 year appt. (please, please let it be so!)