an addict is born

I try not to give my kids too much medicine. The big five year old gets his share of antibiotics thanks to his cleft palate induced ear infections, but even those have slowed down. But despite my desire to keep a close eye on the amount of medicine my boys ingest I still seem to be raising little addicts.

My big five year old is very active. Let me repeat that. He. is. very. active. So active, in fact, that he often wakes up in the middle of the night with leg pain. I know the pain is not as horrific as he sometimes acts based on the fact that he is able to A. get out of bed and walk down the hall to our room, stand by the bed, and wake me up. and B. manage to ask me if he can play his DS when I lay him back down in his own bed. So I rub his legs, sometimes with mineral oil, and I sooth him back to sleep. Every time this happens he asks for medicine. "The red medicine, Mommy. My pain will go away if I just had the red medicine." OK... let's just bundle you off to the drug clinic now...

They get honey for their coughs and eucalyptus for stuffy noses. They get hot tea and lots of hugs. They get homeopathic remedies mixed up by me or purchased at Whole Foods. If they have a high fever, or a true need for antibiotics, they get it. So maybe I have created these little addicts of mine. Maybe I have been too liberal with the non medical remedies, giving them honey at the end of the cough, when maybe they would have been OK without it. Who knows.

What I do know is this.The tiny toddler has learned which kitchen  cupboard we keep all the medicine in and he has made it his mission to get his share. This morning my sweet husband was getting ready to take the boys to The Wilds when he stopped to get a bottle of pain reliever to take with him. (While I don't want my boys hopped up on unatural pharmaceutical compounds I apparently don't mind my husband popping pills...) Seeing as the tiny toddler is always underfoot he was right there, between our legs as we sorted through the pill bottles looking for the right ones. He reached up, asking for medicine.

"No, honey, you don't need any medicine. You're not sick."

His answer to this? A totally made up, manufactured cough. And every time I reminded him that he wasn't sick, he coughed louder. And an addict is born.

homeopathic cough syrup and wives in electric cars

My little guy has a horrible cough. He has his usual cold weather cough- that he has had for a few weeks now, ever since we had our first really cold weather. But right now he has some sort of infection which is making the normal cough really really ucky. I usually medicate him with teaspoons of organic honey as I don't want to get into a need for daily doses of cough syrup- he will literally have this cough through April. But today I did break down and purchase some cough medicine- homeopathic, to make me feel a little better at least.

Mommy: "We need to get you some cough syrup."
Matthew: "I don't like cough syrup."
Mommy: "How do you know? You have never had cough syrup."
Matthew: "It sounds like I don't like it. How about some cough ketchup instead?"
And I bet he would gobble it down if it tasted like ketchup...

I took Matthew to the grocery store this afternoon and on the way home I popped in one of his cd's to end the seemingly never ending cycle of questions flying at me from the back seat. He appeared confused and upset over the fact that we were driving home a different way than usual. Which we weren't, so not sure what was up with that. He is not usually directionally challenged, although every time he sees downtown Columbus he says we are in Cleveland. Maybe I should work on that...

So I pushed play on the cd player and "Farmer in the Dell" filled the car. My sweet little guy started singing along, and I breathed deeply, enjoying the fact that his little voice was temporarily busy with singing. Then I perked up and listened to the words coming out of his mouth.

The Farmer takes a wife, the Farmer takes a wife...... the Farmer takes a wife.
The Wife takes a wife, the Wife takes a wife..... the Wife takes a wife.
The Wife takes the car, the Wife takes the car..... the Wife takes the car.
The Car uses electricity, the Car uses electricity... the Car uses electricity.

How 21st century of him. He has single handedly  updated this classic children's song, complete with same sex relationships,  wives taking cars, and ecologically friendly electric cars at that.