Daddy Means Business…

You’ve probably heard the old saw about little kids and their parents: “Daddy means fun, Mommy means business.”

Well, DADDY means business.

Long story shortened: Gleek wakes up with a fever and some snot-induced gag vomiting. Not a full stomach purge. Not flu. She needed some fever reducer and some night-time meds, and was unwilling to drink it.

Sandra and I fought with this for 20 minutes, wiping gag-vomit from the kitchen floor, and catching a double-handful as the only barely-preferable alternative to cleaning vomit from the carpet, before I finally got fed all the way up. Her tantrum was preventing her from getting medicated, and she needed to be snapped all the way out of it.

So in a somewhat quiet moment, and with just the right hint of anger in my voice (no need to feign it… I was upset) I explained to this three-year-old that there were three ways she could take the medicine.

1) drink it yourself.
2) Mommy squirts it in your mouth (and makes you gag, and you barf in Daddy’s hands again — option #2 is ruled the Hell out)
3) Daddy takes you to the Doctor and they give you a shot.

“Are you going to drink it yourself?”

Tears, negation-noises, kicking and screaming.

“Okay.” I scooped her up. “Let’s go to the Doctor and GET A SHOT.”

Within 2 minutes I had her drinking her medicine enthusiastically. Because Gleek knows that Daddy Means Business.

I’ve washed them twice. My hands still smell like barf.

–Howard

10 thoughts on “Daddy Means Business…”

  1. Yep, that what I would have done.
    There’s that “I mean business” dad voice that every father should have in their toolkit of parenting skills.

    Sadly, quite a few seem not to have.

    Oh, and try using some lemon juice. It contains enzymes that’ll breakdown the fatty acids that cause the smell. Works just as well on the “stinking corpse” smell also…
    [so speaks the guy who worked in a mortuary for awhile.]

    1. Thanks. That’ll help me with a different problem.

      I’ve been wondering how to break down putrescine without using something just as smelly and likely-to-draw-attention.

      Not that I’m planning on needing to dispose of a body, mind you. 😉

  2. Sorry you had such a rough time.

    It’s definitely too late to say this for now, but in case of a next time, buckets are very useful little tools and they’re easy to clean out.

    1. If I’d known I needed a bucket…

      See, the child had already gagged, and I knew she wasn’t vomitous. We had a bucket on-hand earlier, but quickly decided we didn’t need it. Then we took her downstairs to medicate her, and naturally didn’t bring the bucket.

      So… without the bucket on-hand, I ended up with the gag-barf on-hand.

  3. One of the signs of being a father:
    You have attempted to catch someone elses vomit in your bare, cupped hands and it didn’t involve alcohol or a wager.

  4. The lemon juice can work, though it can also dry out the skin pretty badly if you’re susceptable. A better solution is Lava soap, Go-jo, or any of the other soaps that are mainly intended for mechanics and the like; they do the job (I’d rather not get into how I know – it’s not the most pleasant of memories), and they don’t leave your hand quite so raw-feeling afterwards.

    You and Gleek BOTH have my sympathies. Hopefully, it’s all (mostly) better by now.

  5. How cute

    Reading that, and I just got so jealous that I never had kids. I guess it’s never too late for me…

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