Fun With Play-Dough

Three-year-old Mendel has a cold. Not a bad cold; just enough to fill up his sinuses with an enormous amount of snot, which is a problem because he absolutely refuses to blow his nose. My daughter was perfectly capable of blowing her nose at the age of 2; unfortunately, I can’t remember what we did to teach her that. Come to think of it, she probably just figured it out on her own. She does that with most things while we stand idly by.

Not so with my son. We urge, cajole; we beg and threaten. We show him how, again and again. Any time we have to blow our nose, we run to him: Look, we say, this is how you blow your nose! Not in, Out! See?

He sees all right. He just doesn’t think this is a particular habit he needs to make his own. So he sniffs and pretends to wipe, meanwhile inhaling liters and liters of the stuff until he gets sick, of course in the middle of the night, and throws up everything that’s been draining in the wrong direction.

Fantastic, my husband and I tell each other, here we go again. While one of us mops the floor, the other dangles the child over the toilet, which doesn’t do a thing but makes us feel like we’re helping.

Throwing up in the toilet (or a bucket, or the potty, or even –for god’s sake- the sink) isn’t fun. As far as my son is concerned, it’s counter productive: he does his best hurling when positioned near a rug, or in his bed. Even better is our bed, but we don’t let him anywhere near our bedroom when he’s preparing for a slam-dunk in the sick department.

After Mendel has done his thing, and we have cleaned the floor, changed his clothes, cussed a little bit, and started the laundry, he always feels better.

“I’m thirsty,” he announces. “Want juice.”

Really? I don’t bloody think so.

“And a cookie” he adds.

Now, I’ll be the first one to admit that children need to be fed. It’s a law of nature: get pregnant, have child, feed it.

However, over the years I have learned that feeding a child anything within hours after throwing up is a very bad idea. Still, we have a hard time telling him no altogether; what if he dehydrates? So we give him a little juice. He throws it up.

I know, I know, you’re supposed to give them that electrolyte stuff, but my children refuse to ingest any of that, even when it’s masked as popsicles. No, they want idiotic things when they’re sick; like cookies, lox, or yoghurt. Ever tried to clean up yoghurt-vomit?

One time my daughter Isabella spend a whole day throwing up and then announced she wanted to eat macaroni and cheese. We said no. She asked again; we still said no.

“Mom, I’m not sick anymore, I promise.”

Still we said no. She kept asking and asking, until finally we relented and gave her one scoop of macaroni. Then another, and another, until finally she ate three bowls’ worth. 

I guess when they really aren’t sick anymore, they know. And you’ll have to feed them again, eventually. Just keep the cleaning products handy.

Meantime, Mendel stayed home from school today and is lying on the couch, missing his Preschool’s Purim party. At about 11 am, his fever magically disappears, but now he’s tired from being sick all night, and all he wants to do is lie there with his blanket. He will rest up and be completely over it by 7 pm, at which point he’ll have enough energy to stay up indefinitely. Yay.