Medicated Kindness

Phoebe was fine, fine, fine, fine fine yesterday.

Then she got a little runny nose.

Then she lost her ever-loving mind. 

We have never seen that girl so grumpy. She didn't quite know how to communicate that she just wasn't feeling well so while we were at Grandpa and Darla's she just...kept asking to go potty. She should have just found a quiet corner to curl up in because in reality she was just miserable. 

There was a lot of screaming and crying. 

When we loaded into the car to head home she requested that we put on "Everything is Awesome," which we did, and then she fell asleep before we even left the neighbourhood. 

She woke up shortly before we got home and cried because she thought we were going home...which we were. I guess she just had been hoping we'd be there already. 

She definitely had developed a fever by the time we got home. Andrew gave her medicine and put her to bed while I did a video call with my sister Kelli and her grandkids (she went up to Alberta to visit them for the 4th—Scarlett is a year older than Benjamin, Rowan and Arthur are both around Alexander's age). 

*****

It was a long night.

I was up with Phoebe for about two hours. Then Andrew was up with Phoebe for about two hours.

When she got up for the day I checked to see if she had a temperature (she didn't) and then told her to just go find one of her siblings because the parents were too pooped for that early of a wake up call.

So she did, bless her heart.

*****

When I got up, I went to check on her (and the other kids), thermometer in hand. She was playing with magnatiles. 

"Can you help me build a house for my bears?" she asked (because in our house magnatiles and counting bears go together like peanut butter and jelly). 

"Not right this second," I said. "I need to get Alexander's medicine ready for him so that he can get better."

"Can you give him something to make him a little bit nicer?" she grumbled.

*****

Earlier that morning she had used his sticker from the doctor on her picture (she also used her sticker from the doctor). He got mad and scrumpled up her drawing. 

The altercation turned physical. Alexander ended up punching Zoë in the face by accident, which dragged her into the fray. She began wailing on Alexander and...

"You know," I said to Phoebe. "A medicine to make kids a behave a little bit nicer doesn't sound like a bad idea...but for now I think we'll work on getting rid of this ear infection."