My Feet Are Sick

A bug has descended on our family, filling the house with coughs, sniffles and complaints. I had to fill an antibiotic prescription for myself yesterday, which prompted the kids to notice and also want some medicine for themselves.

This afternoon, Robbie told me his tummy felt sick today. (This is more from the suggestion I think I planted this morning when I asked him if his tummy felt good or bad after he went to the bathroom.) So when he told me that his tummy felt sick, after polishing off some pretzel sticks and juice with no issues, I was doubtful. But I asked him if he thought he needed to go to the bathroom or if he thought he'd get sick. He said yes, so we went to the bathroom together. Then, while talking about what it means to feel sick and get sick, he started to cry saying that he wanted medicine. Finally seeing what this was really about, I asked him what was wrong. I said, "Are you crying because you want medicine or crying because you need to be sick?" He turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, "How do I do it?"

After stifling my laughter over seeing him ask how to get sick just to get some meds, I told him we'd take his temperature and he could help me read the numbers. We used the temporal lobe thermometer that just swipes across the forehead and that seemed to appease him enough. So he calmed down and came out of the bathroom and joined in normal activity again. But sure enough, later, he was asking again for some medicine. This time for his ear (which again, I had asked about a couple of days ago). He said his ear hurt, so he needed medicine. Another talk about how medicine only works if we're really sick, and how it can be bad for you if you're not sick later, but he's still whining. So I said, "Come here, Robbie. Tell me what's wrong. Show me what part of you feels sick." He paused, walked over and said, "My feet."

So he spent the next ten minutes lying down in bed to rest his sick feet. :) Sorry, kiddo. No meds for sick feet here.