Just a spoonful of sugar...

I ran across this joke while browsing through "Reader's Digest" today and I related - not to the childproof cap, but to Kyle's aversion to medicine. No, aversion probably isn't the right word. It's more like detest, despise, abhor, loathe.

I watched in disbelief as a friend gave her son medicine today and he eagerly gulped it up. I'm surprised he didn't ask for more. She says he does on occasion. I watched in disbelief because Kyle has NEVER done that. He's detested medicine from the day he was born - no matter the flavor, texture, or color.

To get medicine down his throat is a feat only accomplished by two people - one to hold him down, one to sneak the medicine into the corner of his mouth. It's accompanied by thrashing, screaming, kicking, and crying. We've tried to give it to him in the middle of the night, hoping the delirium would make him less aware of the liquid we were trying to pour down his throat. Didn't work. We try disguising it in food. He can sense it. We've tried the dissolving strips that you stick on their tongues. We've tried it all and it always leads back to the two-man restraint method.

It seems that manufacturers are aware of parents like us. Tylenol has introduced a bottle of clear children's medicine that is to be mixed with a variety of different flavored powders, giving kids the opportunity to pick their poison. I briefly entertained this idea before deciding it was a gimmick that would ultimately be a waste of my $10.

As so it seems that I'm left with few options. Unless anybody has any secret tips. Anybody?