Sunday, February 03, 2008

How To Give Medicine To A 3 Year Old

Step One- Take note of crusty eyes, green snotty nose, barking cough, and Chewbacca-esque cries.

Step Two- Retrieve bottle of children's Motrin from bathroom along with medicine dropper.

Step Three- Properly load medicine dropper with precise amount of medicine.

Step Four- Lay sick, pouty 3 year old back on your pillow and place medicine dropper just inside mouth. Squeeze.

Step Five- Wipe medicine that child has spewed all over your face off with washcloth. Note that none actually made it past child's tongue.

Step Six- Reload Medicine dropper.

Step Seven- Pry child out from under the bed while yelling for back-up.

Step Eight- Have Husband pry child's hands from mouth while you attempt to push dropper past the teeth.

Step Nine- After wiping medicine off of face, hand towel to husband so he may do the same.

Step Ten- Reload medicine dropper while husband distracts child with goldfish crackers.

Step Eleven- Watch horrified as Husband yells 'NOW!' and then attempts to tackle three year old only to miss and land face first on the floor.

Step Twelve- Make lame attempt to not laugh and fail miserably.

Step Thirteen- Realize that in the midst of Husband's mad tackling skillz, child has run off.

Step Fourteen- Find child hiding under the table, coax him out with promises of cartoons and juice.

Step Fifteen- Wait until child starts to put goldfish in his mouth before popping in the dropper and squeezing, quickly close child's jaw shut and hold until he has no choice but to swallow.

Step Sixteen- Comfort angry, sick child as he screams bloody murder.

Step Seventeen- Take a victory shower to get all the motrin out of your hair.