Reaching into my jean pockets Friday morning, I was caught by surprise. I was fishing for a hair band and came back with a fist full of crumbs.
"Huh? Oh yea...." It was, folks, evidence of my guilt. The crime? Bribery. The punishment? Well, none. I pretty much got away with it.
And I'm not sorry. Not, I say. I did and I'd do it again.
You see, Josie developed an ear infection and the doc prescribed her the regular 10-day regimen of antibiotics. This time, instead of the 1/2 teaspoons twice daily dose, he decided we needed more of a challenge and bumped up the dose to 1 teaspoon once a day.
Given that the only thing Josie likes less than taking medicine is having her nose wiped, the first few dosings went as we expected. One of us (Chris) distracted the babe while the other (me) coaxed her into swallowing the cloying, thick medicine. Or at least, that's how the ritual began.
It quickly tumbled into a bad cop, worse cop routine with Chris pinning her to the changing table while I alternated between jamming the syrup syringe into her cheek and covering her mouth so she couldn't spit it out.
On Friday, Chris went into work earlier. And so, faced with the routine alone and unarmed I improvised. OK. I bribed.
I got a cookie from the cupboard. I'll leave the rest to your imagination, but it worked like a charm. I don't want to always use food as the proverbial carrot but I can now see why food symbolizes incentive so well.
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