Doesn't Miss a Trick

The girls were sick this past week. First both of them had colds (coughs, nose runs). This is very common for us, so neither Alex nor I thought much of it save the occasional does of cough syrup that Lucia begged out of us nightly. The sad thing was that JP also got the cough, despite the antibodies in my breastmilk, and also had to have a humidifier going in his room for about a week.

Last Saturday Madgalena woke up with a little green goop in her left eye. Because she had had the cold, I thought it was viral (like it was last May) and would go away in 24 hours (as it had that time), plus her eye did not actually look pink, and after wiping away the early morning goop, she had nothing more in her eyes all day. That evening, she had a little (about 100 F) fever, but was still acting normally, so we hoped things would run their course.

The next morning, however, she had goop in BOTH eyes, and was starting to look a little pink. I called our doctor's answering service, and they said that if it seemed bad we should go to Urgent Care, otherwise to wait for the next day and come in. I didn't really want to do the Urgent Care thing, so I waited until after nap... but then I just couldn't ignore the green goop crusting over both eyes, and off to ZoomCare we went. Alex was doing repairs at the laundromat, so I hauled all three kids down to the Pearl district location at 5 pm and Magdalena was diagnosed with both pinkeye and a bacterial ear infection, and put on antibiotics.

Herein lies the inference to my blog title. I specifically requested the eye ointment instead of the drops, because I know my daughter and it is MUCH easier to rub something into the bottom of her eye than to pry her eyes open to put in drops! Lucia was looking a little pink herself that night, so I proactively put some ointment in her eye too (she never got worse than a little pink, btw, so the few times I put ointment in her eyes was all it took to clear her up). However, when it came to the supposed "fruit punch" flavored antibiotic liquid, Magdalena really balked. Last September she had an ear infection, and it took two people to administer the dose - one to hold her down and pry open her mouth, and the other to inject the loathsome liquid into the corner of her cheek. This night I just had myself, and was trying to wrestle her still on the ground with one arm while injecting liquid into her mouth with the other. Needless to say, it was not pretty. Magdalena was screaming and crying so much that Lucia high-tailed it for her room, hands over her ears, crying herself! I felt awful.

The next morning was not much better, even with both Alex and me there to administer the dosage. Magdalena has learned to "burble-spit" out food since last September - as though she were blowing bubbles in water, she burbled out all the medicine. I don't think any actually made it down. And we still had 9 of her 10 days (twice daily) dosage to go!!!

That was when I got the bright idea to call the pharmacy and ask if they had a flavored chewable variety of the same medication. Magdalena LOVES her vitamins. Anything that you tell her is a vitamin, she will eat with relish and ask for more. Already she has 1 Flintstones, 1 orange chewable, 3 Calcium gummis, 1 orange gummi, and 1 flavored fluoride pill each day. Sometimes I give her double on the calcium gummi and orange chewable just because she begs for more vitamins every day! The pharmacist was skeptical, saying that it would take 2.5 of the chewable to get the dosage she was prescribed, but she did say she would call the PA-C that saw her at ZoomCare for permission to release the chewable antibiotic to Magdalena. Thank the LORD he agreed, and I picked it up at noon that day.

True to form, Magdalena happily chomped down her new "vitamins" with so much relish that Lucia begged for some too! At first I bribed her with promised MnMs when it didn't look like she was going to finish them, but now the flavor has grown on her and she eats them with no bribes necessary. :-)

Tonight, though, she came down with a bout of diarrhea (thankfully she did this on the potty!). I remembered that antibiotics can kill the good bacteria in your intestines, and that yogurt is supposed to help with this. Sadly for us, however, Magdalena has taken a dislike to yogurt since returning from China. She used to eat it willingly each morning mixed into her oatmeal - plain flavor, no less! But here she has refused it irrespective of whether it is mixed with oatmeal, plain with jam or honey, or even the too-much-sugar added flavored kinds! Nothing of this texture will get by her lips (she even refuses pudding, probably for the same texture reason).

This is when MnMs came to my rescue. First I tried to bribe Magdalena with the promise of MnMs if she ate her plain Greek yogurt flavored with honey. She refused. I managed to slip a little in her mouth when she was crying, but she burbled it all out. Next, I put 6 MnMs (one of each color) in a small, clear plastic cup in front of her and said she could eat them after she ate the yogurt. No dice. Next, I promised her 1 MnM after each bite. Still not having any of it.

Finally, my Dad (my parents come up two days a week to help us, which is so super nice!) suggested that I just put the MnMs IN the yogurt. Hmmm... why not? I stuck one MnM on top of the spoonful of yogurt (Magdalena chose the color). She looked mildly interested, but still wouldn't open up for it. Finally I dumped all 6 MnMs in the bowl of yogurt and took a big spoonful that had all of 4 MnMs on it! I wiped the yogurt off a small section of each MnM so she could see that they really were there - though by this time there was a tell-tale swirl of color surrounding each MnM in the white yogurt, and finally, FINALLY, Magdalena opened her mouth wide and took down a bite. SUCCESS!! She even ate the rest of the bowl of yogurt (about a half cup total) with at least one MnM in each bite, and at the end proclaimed that it was "yummy." I'll bet it was!

Of course, Lucia had to have yogurt with MnMs too, but since she already likes (LOVES) yogurt with honey or jam or pretty much anything sweet, she only got 4 MnMs total to dump into her bowl. Magdalena probably ended up consuming about 12 MnMs tonight, but I would do it again in a heartbeat if it means helping my little girl get through this round of antibiotics with no additional side effects! Man, though, nothing gets by her! That kid sure doesn't miss a trick. :-)


In other news, Lucia and I both had dermatologist appointments for our eczema last week at OHSU, and we got to ride the Tram between appointments. Lucia was in heaven!

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I've been trying to take more pics with the kids lately (after a friend's poignant blog about how moms so often are not pictured, since we're doing so much of the picture taking!)- this wasn't the most favorable shot, but hey, what can you do? More on the fun fondue night with the Cornetts in a future blog:

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So fun to take pics with JP:

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Magdalena cutie pie! (and Mama's new haircut)

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A couple cute ones of JP on his own:

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Loving life in the Bumbo - JP now sits in it without complaint and even accompanies us at the dinner table!

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Though he's not smiling in this pic, Magdalena has started to stick around long enough to elicit a smile from her little brother. It helps that he smiles a lot more readily now, so coaxing it out is not that time-consuming of a process:

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Lucia loves to take up the camera and insisted on taking this lovely shot of Alex and me the other night:

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