Last night our 2 1/2-year old son, the Juban Princeling, scored a pretty high fever out of nowhere. Like, literally, he pulled it out of his ass just in time for bed. I saw him do it, too, saw him reach back, grab a fever, and smack it onto himself. Great.
So I did what any good parent would do: I dumped some baby Motrin down his gullet and kissed him goodnight.
This morning I took him to the pediatrician, who checked his throat, which was easy since he was screaming his head off. Might be strep, she said. Then the nurse came in to do a culture while I was forced to hold my frightened, crying, screaming son down on the table. Five long minutes later we got the results: yes, strep. Yay! All that torturing my child was not for naught!
The rest of the afternoon was spent feeding my son baby Motrin, snuggling him, and trying not to kill him. Know what's worse than a kid going through a hard dose of the Terrible Two's? A sick kid going through the Terrible Two's.
He'd whine for me even while he was on my lap snuggled into my bosom. He didn't want to eat. He didn't want to drink. He wanted this toy, but then he didn't want it. He wanted to lie in bed. He wanted to get out of bed. He wanted the light on. He wanted the light off. He wanted a Band-Aid on his shirt. (I don't know, either.) He wanted his grandma (who lives in Miami). He refused to eat or drink anything except jelly beans and lollipops even though I know he's on both Motrin and antibiotics and I don't want his stomach lining to, you know, shred. He wanted a bottle of 1945 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild Jeroboam. Oh wait, that was me.
I used all the tricks from "Buddhism for Mothers" I could to keep calm and carry on during what was, to my son, the most wretched of all times for anyone, ever. I reminded myself that he is sick and miserable, that strep sucks, and that I am his Mommy and that for the rest of his life when he gets sick it'll be me he wants. And then when he refused to put on PJs I lost it a little bit and snapped at him just a teensy bit, which I think is what Hitler's mother used to do and now my son will surely grow up to make war and genocide. Great. I couldn't hold it together for just 45 more minutes until bed time, and now an entire race of people will suffer for it as some point in the future.
So I came up with the only way I know how to deal with a crisis of this level: a drinking game!
A little medicine for baby, a little medicine for Mommy
(photo courtesy of WikiCommons)
Here's how you play:
Don't bother drinking every time your child moans, "Mommy!" or you'll be passed out in under five minutes.
Open a bottle of your booze of choice.
Drink once for every...
*Refusal to eat real food
*Degree of temperature above 98.6
*Reversion to babyhood (in my son's case, he actually asked for a bottle for the first time in over a year)
*Day of antibiotic
*Request for a lollipop
*Voluntary snuggle
*Hour of quarantine
*Request to watch the same damn video yet again
When the bottle is empty, mash it over your head as hard as you can to knock yourself unconscious for a while. Repeat as necessary.
He'd whine for me even while he was on my lap snuggled into my bosom. He didn't want to eat. He didn't want to drink. He wanted this toy, but then he didn't want it. He wanted to lie in bed. He wanted to get out of bed. He wanted the light on. He wanted the light off. He wanted a Band-Aid on his shirt. (I don't know, either.) He wanted his grandma (who lives in Miami). He refused to eat or drink anything except jelly beans and lollipops even though I know he's on both Motrin and antibiotics and I don't want his stomach lining to, you know, shred. He wanted a bottle of 1945 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild Jeroboam. Oh wait, that was me.
I used all the tricks from "Buddhism for Mothers" I could to keep calm and carry on during what was, to my son, the most wretched of all times for anyone, ever. I reminded myself that he is sick and miserable, that strep sucks, and that I am his Mommy and that for the rest of his life when he gets sick it'll be me he wants. And then when he refused to put on PJs I lost it a little bit and snapped at him just a teensy bit, which I think is what Hitler's mother used to do and now my son will surely grow up to make war and genocide. Great. I couldn't hold it together for just 45 more minutes until bed time, and now an entire race of people will suffer for it as some point in the future.
So I came up with the only way I know how to deal with a crisis of this level: a drinking game!
A little medicine for baby, a little medicine for Mommy
(photo courtesy of WikiCommons)
Here's how you play:
Don't bother drinking every time your child moans, "Mommy!" or you'll be passed out in under five minutes.
Open a bottle of your booze of choice.
Drink once for every...
*Refusal to eat real food
*Degree of temperature above 98.6
*Reversion to babyhood (in my son's case, he actually asked for a bottle for the first time in over a year)
*Day of antibiotic
*Request for a lollipop
*Voluntary snuggle
*Hour of quarantine
*Request to watch the same damn video yet again
When the bottle is empty, mash it over your head as hard as you can to knock yourself unconscious for a while. Repeat as necessary.
1 comment:
Hahaha! I know of what you speak, meine Mutter =)
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