Toddlers and Medication

My two year old grandson has an ear infection, which has led to several days of sleeplessness, howling and covering the ears...and that was just his mom (kidding).



Now, his mom has gone over night and I have been left in charge of administering the medication. The doctor prescribed chewable antibiotics, which seemed to me, like a dream come true for a sick toddler, until, of course, I tried to get him to eat one. The first one went immediately onto the floor I gave it to him again, 8 or 9 times with the same result. Then I tried quickly stuffing it into his mouth only to have it spat out with the speed of a spit soaked bullet. I tried again, with the same ending


Toss that one in the garbage (in reality I should have probably left it, sitting on top of the garbage in the can and he most likely would have stolen it and scarfed it down within seconds.)


Second pill, crushed up in a small bit of juice in a sippy cup. Usually this kid loves juice, but today he decided he would not even look at the cup. I made several attempts to lure him into drinking it, pleaded, cajoled, briefly tried 'helping' him to drink it until he finally slapped the cup out of my hand and went back to playing with his toys.


That concoction went down the kitchen sink.


The third pill was crushed into powder and mixed with ice cream. Delicious you might think, but you would be wrong, at least in the view of this two year old. He wouldn't even consider tasting whatever it was I had in the bowl. I said "Yummy ice cream, baby", pretended I was eating it, made all sorts of dramatic eating sounds, rubbed my tummy, generally made a fool of myself only to have him glance my way for a split second then go back to his cars and boats.


Third pill down the kitchen drain.


Okay...I decided on drastic action, as he absolutely needed to have this antibiotic. I had already seen what he was like without it.  I got the medicine syringe out of the cupboard. Now, bear in mind that this baby's mom can pin him down with the speed of a professional wrestler and have the medicine in his mouth, via syringe, before he even knows she has him in a strong hold. Not so with out of practice grammy's.
I ground up the fourth pill, mixed it with a little juice and tried to fit the mess into the syringe. The syringe was too small. I knew there was no way I would get a chance to do a second round, assuming I managed to get the first one down him at all. I squirted it back out into a bowl and tried to fill it up again (figuring, I suppose, that the syringe may have suddenly grown bigger). Same thing. Too small. I decided to go ahead and try to give it to the little guy anyway. He clamped his mouth shut with a lock position worthy of any self respecting pit bull in a state of full out rage. I tried to stick the syringe in the corner of his mouth and shot the liquid into his little throat.  I thought.  What didn't run out of his mouth and down his shirt came directly at my face.


Pill number 5.  I searched the house and finally located a bigger syringe. I talked to myself and rationalized that I, who outweigh the child by at least 800 pounds, ought to be able to get this stuff into him one way or another. Re-read the tale of pill number four if you want to know the outcome of the fifth effort.


By this time, my hair, shirt, pants and face were splattered with antibiotics mixed with apple juice, fruit punch and ice cream. The baby still ran around on the grass, happy as a lark, drenched with the same drool laced, lumpy swill that covered me and he still remained, completely medication free.


I figured it was only a matter of minutes before the last dose of medication wore off enough to render him a writhing ball of screaming, tears, snot, and fury. Ear aches do NOT feel nice.


I found some yogurt in the fridge. This little guy is from a generation of merchandising savvy babies though and he would not even think about eating yogurt out of a plain old bowl, he had to see it come out of the actual container it came in. So, I secretly set up shop in the kitchen out of his sight, poured the yogurt into a cup, mixed a little bit with his crushed up pill, then put the small, medicine mixture into the yogurt container and took it outside. Lo and behold, he ate the stuff!!! All of it. I used that ploy all day yesterday to great success and then this morning...I discovered I was out of yogurt!!!!!!!!!!


No problem though, after a few tries with apple sauce, spit out on the floor, on me, on him and on every surface nearby, I settled on a crushed up pill tucked into a spoonful of chocolate icing! Works like a charm.  Hey....come on...grammy's have leaway!