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March 23, 2006
So, I have 2 out of my 3 children at home sick right now. We've been battling ugly chest congestion, stuffy noses and fevers in the range of 102.2. It's been a real treat that has me practically bathing in Lysol in hopes of not getting it myself.
Nights have been particularly hard since it becomes rather difficult to breathe when one is not constantly yacking up the truly heinous stuff that is invading one's lungs. Being the good mommy that I am, I, of course, sought a solution. Giant jars of Vicks to slather on a rag and tie around my kids' necks? No. An old yucky T-shirt to designate as the "Vicks Shirt" that gets coated in the stuff. No. Don't want to hassle with the vaporizer (plus, they sleep in two different rooms); can't use those plug-in thingy-s because the brainiac that wired our house only put outlets in the places where one would obviously have to put furniture so none are accessible enough. No, I go the obvious, no mess, so-easy-to-use route. I go out and purchase the little menthol patches that just stick right to your kids' chest and allows them to breathe easy all night long. This particular product is put out by Triaminic. The cartoon pic of the little boy on the front is so cute and he looks so happy to be able to breathe with his little patch on. The box comes with 6 patches AND a sheet of stickers. BONUS!!
So, bedtime comes last night and I dope up my kids with the appropriate multi-function liquids and pull out the box of magic patches. Aren't they cool, I muse to the children? We ooh and ahh over how clever they are and how you can smell them right away. See, they're already working! We find all the appropriate jammies so that the patch can really emit all the soothing vapors that it can and I kiss my babies' fever-ridden foreheads and send them off to a good night's sleep. In the morning they will be just as cute as cartoon boy on the box! Yippee; score one for mommy!
Fast forward 3.5 hours. My oldest comes and wakes me asking if he can take the patch off. He's breathing OK and it's beginning to hurt. Hurt? Yes, it's burning and stinging. "Yes, yes, take it off if you feel better but put it on a piece of paper or something near your bed so you can still smell it a little," I slur through my sleep. He leaves and, as I'm drifting back into sleep, my groggy mind floats to the 4 year old who is wearing the other patch. I conclude, through my fog, that I should get up and check to make sure he is OK, too, but I apparently fall back asleep while deciding this. Instead, I'm awoken by said child who is in tears, standing by my bedside, begging me to take the burning thing off of him. Yes, yes, yes, I say in a panic and shoot straight up in bed. **Now, one would think that the burning part is the bad part. One might be correct in this assumption but there's one more challenge ahead** I reach out to grasp the patch that is adhered to my hairless, pink, feverish, baby skinned boy and begin to peel up the corner when he shrieks like a rabbit being skinned alive (if you've ever heard that sound before, as I have, it is NOT a sound you want to hear at any time of day, much less at around 1 something in the morning). Oh, yes, that's right; I am, in effect, ripping an enormous band-aid off my child's chest. My husband says, "Just rip it off!" "Off his CHEST?" I hiss. "I'm just kidding," replies DH. His timing is incredible.
So, I peel said fire patch from my dear boy's virgin skin and then hug him close. Good thing those patches came with a sheet of stickers. They will come in handy tomorrow when trying to distract my children from the raw rectangular marks on their chests. Come here, I say, as I start to lift him to my lap for a more appropriately soothing mommy cuddle. AS I'M LIFTING HIM AND JUST SETTING HIM ON MY LAP, he says, "But my clothes are wet," which I feel on my bare thigh at the same moment in time. I quickly right him to his feet once again and ask why. "I had to go a little and I had an accident." The poor lamb. He's been overcome by the burning on his chest and being in a state of panic while still pretty much asleep and tinkled a bit. If only it were that easy. Oh, no. Not my boy, the reigning prince of understatements. This child has completely peed. COMPLETELY peed. All over himself. On my bedroom floor. Cripes. I tell him to start taking his clothes off while I go rustle up dry pj's and Spiderman undies and prepare to get him clean. While in his room, a little voice, I believe it was Satan himself, giggles and says, "Check his bed, hee hee hee." And the minions shrieked gleefully and did a little dance just as my hand, in the dark, found that my boy had gone "a little" in his bed as well. Curses! You would have thought the boy had drank a Big Gulp before retiring for the night.
So, somewhere around 2 something in the morning, I climbed back into my own bed. No more burning. No more crying. No more peeing. I see the cute little cartoon boy in my mind. I hate him. His patch probably burns, too, but since he is the son of Satan, who made these evil torture devices, it doesn't bother him. Probably thinks it tickles a bit. Sick little bastard. I hope he gets pink eye in a bad way.
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