Medicine + Lady M = nightmare.
About a month ago Lady M came down with a bladder infection that had to be looked after with antibiotics, and oh what a challenge. My poor little girl was rather uncomfortable, and after a trip to the doctor, she knew that medicine was in her future. And we're not talking about penicillin (aka. banana medicine - your childhood favourite, and mine!), my little girl had to take a fruit-flavoured liquid concoction.
Night one was a success - she took her spoonful of medicine like a champ, no issue at all. The next morning, however, was a completely different story. Though she told me 'it didn't taste so bad' on night one, a mere 12 hours later she was telling a new tale. Judging from her reaction, overnight it had begun to taste like a mixture of marmite and arsenic. It eventually went with her to daycare that morning, and our wonderful caregiver convinced her to take it somewhere along the way.
That night I thought I'd be clever, and I mixed the "horrible" medicine in with a small bowl of chocolate pudding. She couldn't taste it at all, but feeling the need to be an honest mummy, I fessed up to what I'd done. At first she thought it was great, declaring "I can't taste it at all!" But, the novelty soon wore off, and she gave up on the pudding.
The next 10 days presented a series of battles, creative thinking and clever hiding places. Because Murphy's Law is always right, on the second day of the Medicine Escapades Cal had to head to Florida, leaving me to fight the medicine battle all alone for the next week. That weekend we visited my parents and they were privy to a very long standoff between Lady M and I as I tried to reason with her and convince her to take the fruity medicine. For the record, reasoning did not work with my little four-year-old this time around. She is a clever grasshopper.
The situation required a new solution, and I had to channel my creative thinking skills and really find ways to mask the taste in foods she was already consuming. And though Mary Poppins sings its praises, I wasn't prepared to give my little lady a spoonful of sugar. I did, however, mask the medicine in maple syrup and cranberry juice quite well. And I had learned my lesson: sometimes you can't be Honest Mummy; being a little deceitful was much more effective in this case. In the end, Lady M got her 7-day course of medicine into her, and her bladder infection cleared up. I can't help but wonder though, with all the amazing discoveries that have been made to date, how can antibiotics not have been made into a little dinosaur-shaped gummy or a clear, tasteless powder that can covertly be sprinkled on food?
Seems simple to me, and I'm sure Mary Poppins would agree!
