The Monday before our 11 stay-at-home days, we learned that Ella had an ear infection. She has a history of them –- not enough of a history that she needs tubes but enough of a history that we can read the signs. This was her first one of the season, and we went right to the high-dose antibiotic for treatment. It was in a liquid form and sweetened up a bit for Ella’s liking so as to better facilitate consumption.
 |
| Ella, post-medicine administration |
Yeah, right. She talked a big game, seemingly excited to take the “met-sin”; but when it came time to execute on that, she battled every attempt we made. Ella’s battle typically involved screaming, kicking feet and “zerbert-style” spitting as we put the “met-sin” into her mouth. We tried shooting it into her mouth with a syringe and tried spooning it into her mouth with plastic medicine spoon. With both, I’d say half of the “met-sin” ended up in her mouth, the other half on her face. We’d push any substantial globs that landed on her face into her mouth with our fingers. We tried giving it to her sitting up and lying down. We tried drops of chocolate atop the “met-sin” in the spoon. We also tried plugging her nose as we gave her the “met-sin,” drawing on the experiences we had with our ailing cat (RIP Squeaker).
This fight oftentimes left us stressed and splattered with "met-sin" ourselves. It was generally pretty ugly, and we had the battle to dread twice a day. By the start of our 11 stay-at-home days, we had had a couple of successes (Dan more than I); but there were still no guarantees of any level of cooperation, and the failures continued (I more than Dan). But on the last day that she was to take the "met-sin" (the day after Christmas), Ella did most of the work -- she lay on the couch and opened her mouth wide, and I poured the "met-sin" into her mouth. There was no kicking, no zerbert-style spitting. She swallowed it all and then smiled big and proud as Cal and I praised her excessively.
On the eighth stay-at-home day of the Leatherman Christmas, Cal made me a princess crown.
Cal likes it when I dress like a princess. This isn't something I aspire to do or be -- really, all I need to do is don a skirt, and I'm a princess in his eyes. I nail the look when I add a scarf, sparkly shoes or my dress boots.
One evening during our 11 stay-at-home days, I had a wake to attend and threw on a skirt and my dress boots and sat with Cal and Ella at the kitchen table as I waited for Dan to get home from work. Cal was coloring at the time. Seeing me in my skirt triggered princess thoughts in his head, and he announced that he was going to make me a princess crown that I could take with me that night.
Such a thoughtful kid. He retrieved his toolbox -- the one with some screws, nuts, nails, multi-holed washers, screwdriver and hammer, all made of wood. He asked me for some help, and then it became an exercise in creativity and problem-solving -- how could we fit these supplies together as some semblance of a crown that I could fit or at least balance on my head for a bit?
 |
| My crown, wrapped and tagged |
With a design in my head, I provided him the instruction and he did the work. When all the supplies in his toolbox were gone, Cal declared the crown to be ready except that he wanted to wrap it before giving it to me. I really didn't want to wrap this thing; so we compromised, and I dug out a bow for him to use. While I was getting the bow, he wrote a note on a post-it and attached that to the crown. The note read: "FROM MOMMY CAL."
We took some pictures of each of us with the crown on, and then I headed to the car with the crown in my hand. I set it on the passenger's seat, and it made the trip to the wake with me along with my smile.
No comments:
Post a Comment