Keeping him still

This morning I took all 3 kiddos to the doctors for Ella's 6 month check-up and shots. What should have been a 20 minute appointment turned into a 90 minute ordeal. My pediatrician took a look into Max's ears, as he's had yet another infection, and when listening to his lungs, she felt it would be best to get an x-ray.

Max....x-ray...sitting still. All sorts of thoughts went through my mind while trekking all 3 kids down to Radiology, as I imagined the disaster this was going to turn out to be.

Apparently Max is not the only squirrely kid in this universe. A contraption called a Pigg-O-Stat has actually been invented for such circumstances. Not sure where the name comes from, the the thing looked just evil, like some antiquated piece of equipment you'd see in a psych ward from the 60s. It looked like this:

And when a child is placed in it, he "supposedly" looks like this:

I honestly think this child has been "photoshopped" in. Max did NOT look like this. It took 3 of us to get him in it, and as you can imagine any toddler would do, he screamed and screamed and just looked so sad, it broke my heart. What a cruel contraption

HOWEVER, tonight, as I was just interrupted now at 11 PM by a toddler who adamantly REFUSES to go to sleep, and I discover that he has spent the last hour sneaking around upstairs, including going into Ella's room and tossing toys into her crib, barely missing her sleeping body, I think that such a "pediatric immobilizer" might come in handy!!!!