A Spoonful of Sugar helps the Medicine go Down

I’m pretty sure I told you that Baby Doll has an ear infection. That’s another sure sign of fall. With all these kids, I rarely go a week in the winter without visiting the doctor for something or another. And Scout managed to get strep, so both girls are on antibiotics. It’s rather amazing to see the difference in their willingness to take their medicine. Baby Doll has no problem at all just chugging down whatever I give her. Maybe that’s because when she was tiny she had reflux, meaning syringes full of medicine every day.

Scout, on the other hand, hates medicine of any kind! I have finally convinced her that vitamin gummies are OK, but it took a while. The only way I can get her to swallow anything is to mask it with root beer or chocolate milk. And then I still have to threaten her with stuff I probably wouldn’t do (I can say that because she can’t really read yet). Like yesterday, even though I mixed her medicine into chocolate milk, she messed around for half an hour pretending to drink it. Finally it was time for her to leave for school. I told her that if she didn’t drink the entire cup by the time we got to the school, I wasn’t going to let her get out of the van. Three minutes later we pulled up in front of the school. She gave me a look and finally drained her cup.

She isn’t my only child with issues. I’m still not sure the Drama Queen (at age 22) can swallow a pill, and I know Prima Donna can’t. I have personally witnessed her chewing up an Ibuprofen caplet or spreading the powder from an antibiotic capsule over a tablespoon of applesauce.

But my very worst was Crafty. Even as a tiny girl, her gag reflex was so bad that any kind of medicine would just come right back up. (She even puked on the dentist once, but that's another story.) Mixing with root beer or chocolate milk didn’t help either (except that she now has a healthy hatred for chocolate milk!).

When she was three or four, she got a cold. It wasn’t long before that cold had settled in her ears. She was ornery and miserable, but refused Tylenol. I finally took her to the doctor and she confirmed a double ear infection, complete with antibiotics and numbing drops for her ears. Getting the Amoxicillin down her was brutal and even though we wedged the syringe between her teeth, she managed to gag until she brought it all back up. We were tired and frustrated, but we still hoped the numbing drops might help us get a little sleep.

My sweetie grabbed the cotton balls and the tiny bottle. As I tried to hold her in a semi-comfortable position, Crafty screamed and thrashed and pulled away. My sweetie broke the cotton ball and unscrewed the cap on the drops. As soon as he approached her ear with the bottle, sweet little Crafty started choking and gagging. Somehow she had it in her mind that she could force those drops back out of her ears…maybe we should have named HER the Drama Queen. PS I would love it if you have tips to share on how you get your kids to take the meds. I don’t think this problem is going to go away anytime soon!

PPS I guess I shouldn't have brought up the nasty phone call. It was from some random dad who also has a scout who just completed all the merit badges. He was angry with me because Nate's story is all over the web and his son's isn't. There are 153 confirmed cases of scouts who have all achieved this goal throughout the hundred years of scouting. Nate is the only one that I know of who is autistic. We are just hoping that he can inspire some of these kids with disabilities to work a little harder. In his words..."Stop slacking and get on with it!"