Popping Pills

After our teenage daughter decided to abandon ship last week and return to her old ways living with her mother, you'd think the trauma would have left me popping pills. And it's been a trauma, believe me. Not just for me, but for every other member of the household, and mostly for the remaining teenage brother who is working so hard at wrapping his head around the events. But no, I'm not popping any pills beyond the extra dose of turmeric added to my daily bunch of vitamins and supplements, and of course, lots and lots of yoga. It's been a tough ride to say the least, but with those tools, I have my seat belt on, and I think I'm riding it out pretty well.

Which brings us back to popping pills...

When my son was younger, it was always a challenge to find children's vitamin supplements that didn't come in sweet and flavored liquid forms. My husband and I always went out of our way to find clean cough medicines and fever reducers for him, too. When he had a slight fever, we always favored piercing an adult liquid ibuprofen and mixing it with honey and tahini. By the way, tahini is the BEST cough suppressant out there, and our kids don't mind it at all. It's quite soothing for the throat, actually.

The one thing our youngest son did mind a lot, no matter how flavored it was, was cod fish oil, and who can blame him? So one day, I decided to try to teach him how to swallow my pills instead. He was just three years old at the time,  and to my utter surprise and joy,  he got it down from the first try!  It brought him so much pride to be able to do that, and since then, he's been taking his vitamins in the form of 8-10 pills every day, and his ibuprofen in pills when needed. I know some adults who can't do that. Maybe they were given sweet syrups as kids, too...?

My point is, we really wouldn't need all the colorful sugar-laden garbage-filled kids' medicines and supplements that are out there, if we simply teach kids to swallow pills. Whoda thunk it, huh?

Behold, my now 4-year-old son's demo for you --slamming his pills in less than a minute and a half. I'm a proud mama!

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Stay tuned...