It’s been a sleepless couple of nights for the McNeely household. Kiera came down with a fever late Saturday night. She and I stayed home from church on Sunday. One minute she would be playing dolls and the next minute she would be curled in my lap drinking her chocolate milk.
Sunday night proved to be just as trying as Saturday night. She woke several times with fever and a cough. I called the doctor Monday morning and took her in to be seen.
Thankfully, he assured us it was not the flu. He did prescribe her an antibiotic and a cough syrup. Kiera has always taken medicine very well. Sadly, though, today we learned that her cough syrup does not taste good. In fact, if we are going by descriptions, Kiera refers to it as “the bad medicine.”After the first sip of “the bad medicine”, her little body shivered at the taste. It took some serious discussing before she would swallow the rest. Honestly, I am dreading the next dose.
We did have an interesting discussion on what makes her body better. As we laid down for her nap, she asked, “What makes me have fever?” I begin to explain about bad germ cells and white blood cells.
Now, to a four-year-old, that is a lot of information. Who am I kidding? For this thirty-something year old Mommy, it is a lot of information. I was praying I was not misleading my child as I begin discussing white blood cells. It’s been a long time since college.
I should also add in that in our house, we tell a lot of princess and hero stories…a whole lot.
Going back to our discussion, I begin explaining how bad germ cells were “bad guys” and white blood cells are “the heroes.” I told her how her body gets rid of the bad germ cells and the heroes fight to make her better. I was pretty proud of my analogy. As I paused to let the information sink in, she asked, “Do the heroes fight with swords and weapons?”
I replied, “Well, no…”
“Oh, they just use their hands?” Kiera asked.
“Umm…well…yes.” I answered, deciding that was as close as I was going to go with that answer. “They also use the medicine that the doctor gave us and resting to fight the bad germ cells. That’s why it is important to take our medicine and to sleep when we need to.” I’ll pause for a minute so you can applaud my plug for medicine and rest.
“What happens to the hero cells when I am not sick?”
Now, remember how we applauded my previous answer and give me a little slack for my next answer.
I replied, “Well, they go in their homes and close their doors.” I could have gone with how the hero cells are constantly working in our bodies to keep us healthy, but, no. I went with the “they basically go into hiding” answer. Oh, well. When she gets older, we can discuss the hero cells more.
I’ll leave you with this conversation that Kiera and I had on the way to the doctor this morning.
I had to borrow my in-laws van to take Kiera to the doctor. Aaron was already at work and my father-in-law works from home a lot. He was kind enough to come get us, so I didn’t have to get Aaron out of work.
As she and I drove to the doctor in the van, she piped up from the back seat, “I wish we had a car like this.”
I glanced in the rear view mirror and repeated her response back to her. “You wish we had a car like this?”
She said, “Yes. I wish we had a car like this and a little sister.”
I quickly distracted her by changing the subject with my ninja-like skills. Ok. I honestly can’t even remember what I said at that moment but the little sister conversation was safely tucked away.
Have a great week, everyone and watch out for those bad germ cells!
