A Spoonful of Sugar...

Good grief. How is it that two well-educated, at-least-moderately-intelligent people can suddenly lose all basic common sense? How is it that we forget life lessons that we learned as small children?? How is it that we could possibly forget Mary-freaking-Poppins!!!
Sigh.
Poor Maya.. sick and needing her medicine (cold liquid bubble-gum tasting Amox.).. and hating the taste of it sooo much that it was an insanely painful struggle to get any of it down her throat. She loves the mild cherry flavor of infant Tylenol and Motrin (tis almost frightening actually).. but not strong bubble-gum.
So to give us credit, we did not completely forget the teachings of Mary Poppins.. we just did not brainstorm the idea. We were firmly planted inside the box and forgot to venture outside of it a bit.
We tried and tried to get the teaspoon of pink liquid into our child's stomach.. mixing with ice cream, mixing with applesauce, holding her nose and forcing it into her mouth (I did NOT like this one, but it was nanny's solution and actually worked better than all our other ideas, tho causing mental scarring for everyone involved and leading to dad's quick exit from the room and streaks of pink down mommy's shirts).
We tried rewarding with special treats, stickers, hugs and kisses. We tried explanations and bribery. We called it Princess Pink Yumminess and explained that her friend, Princess Ava, loved it. We sang songs and made faces. We made loud animal sounds and we wore silly hats and we danced around the room.
To no avail.
{stop laughing you experienced moms out there!!}
Finally I asked the on-call nurse at the pediatrician's office.
After asking what we normally do when our child is sick and then shockingly finding out that this was our first sickness requiring mandatory medication.. the nurse read us ideas from the computer screen in front of her.
Ahh.. mix the medicine with something strong and sweet. So we were 1/2-way there, trying sweeten things.. we just had not taken the mental leap to figure out that it needed to actually MASK the flavor rather than 'dress it up'.
Duh.

So for any other not-thinking-clearly parents out there.. these worked for us (FINALLY!!!):

* Mix medicine with powdered Kool-Aid (this worked once)
* Mix medicine with strawberry-flavored syrup and then mix with strawberry-flavored 'Moo Juice' (aka yogurt smoothie drink with cow cartoon on packaging). Put on 'moo' hat (be creative), sit on floor, make 'moo'ing sounds, pretend to drink the 'moo' drink in order to inspire child to want to share. (this worked twice and was somewhat embarrassing for parent involved, so use at your own risk (hopefully with no onlookers))
* Mix medicine with strawberry-flavored syrup and pour over small amt of strawberry Haagen-Daz ice-cream (full-fat) and make this a special treat. (this is the BIG WINNER!!! *note to self: might also work for sick, whiny husbands!)

So finally, one week later, our baby is mostly recovered. She is now down to just having a cough and runny nose (I guess she was slammed with a few different viruses at the same time). Yay! She is back to her happy, personable self. And only 4 more days of strawberry ice-cream treats. Phew!
Maybe the ice-cream will double as a weight-gainer. The on-call pediatrician seemed to be judging us a bit when we took her in on Monday. She gave me an odd look and said '..please try to feed her as much as possible'. I was a bit confused and assured her that we were trying to feed her quite frequently, but she was sick and didn't have an appetite. Later, I thought that maybe this look and comment were due to the fact that Maya was only 20.5 lbs when weighed with all her clothing/shoes and holding her big stuffed bear. Oh well. I'm sure it won't be the first time that someone thinks we aren't doing our job and causing her to be super-skinny. And maybe I'm paranoid.. but the look that she gave, along with the slow and methodical tone of her voice.. were not normal. Even Aj noticed this. Well whatever.. at least she's doing her job and caring about the kids.
Happy Saturday! :)
Looks neglected, doesn't she? haaahaaa!