TFYO started her very first week of school this past Monday, and by Wednesday she had brought home her very first school cold. Those of you with kids understand this. When kids all get together, inevitably there is one with a runny nose and a hacking cough whose mother decides to send him to school anyway. And then that kid infects the entire class. So, instead of just one whiny, snotty four-year-old, there are now sixteen of them. It's sort of the same principle that lies behind zombies and vampires. Once you're bitten, you're one of them.
Well, Wednesday night, TFYO had a sore throat and a slight fever and she couldn't sleep. She was up every couple of hours wailing for water. I asked her, begged her, pleaded with her to take a Children's Tylenol to help calm down her throat pain so she (and I!) could sleep. No dice.
This requires a little background information.
TFYO hates medicine, and has since she was a teeny tiny thing. When she was about two years old, she came down with a virus. Our pediatrician at the time said to give her some children's Tylenol to ease her symptoms, and everything would run it's course, no problem. Well, we tried giving her the drops, but truth be told, they tasted awful. She'd run around the house yelling "No med-cine! No med-cine!"
We'd be following behind with the bottle, saying "It's just Tylenol, it's okay!"
So, our pediatrician suggested we hide it in something. I had the brilliant idea to mix it with the milk in her sippy cup.
As an indication of her intelligence, she already seemed to know something was up. I handed her the cup. She sniffed it. She looked at me suspiciously with those big blue eyes. She took a sip.
And then all hell broke loose.
She glared at me. She slammed the cup down on the table. She only said one word, and she said it with vehemence.
"TYLENOL!"
She then sat on the floor with her back turned to me and began to sob.
I felt like the worst mother in the world. I'd broken her trust, and we both sat on the floor and sobbed until Ray came home. Eventually, she crawled into my lap, and I told Ray the story. He laughed, which just made TFYO more upset. Even so, Ray is smarter than I am. He mixed the medicine with vanilla ice cream, and it was downed very quickly.
So, now, trying to get her to take anything, no matter how good it tastes is a struggle. It's a little like giving medicine to a cat. That, and for months afterward she would pick apart any food I gave her and sniff it to make sure I hadn't hidden anything in there.
All day Thursday we went back and forth, "Please take a melt-away, they taste like a cherry candy." Which they really do, by the way. They actually taste really good.
"No," she'd say "It's Tylenol, and I don't like Tylenol."
She finally collapsed from exhaustion Thursday evening about 5:30 p.m. She slept through the night and woke up Friday seemingly better.
"Hi, Mommy, I'm not sick anymore!"
"Oh, you're not, are you?"
"Nope! And I didn't have to go to the doctor, and I didn't have to take any Tylenol! Ha! I'm all better without it! HA! HA!" (That last bit should sound like evil laughter)
TFYO is now invincible. She is immune to all of my mommy powers. Except, perhaps, for vanilla ice cream.
