Sick Day

Bear is sick. Whatever it is that he has befell him within a span of about 20 minutes yesterday afternoon. One minute he was carrying 2 ceramic turtles around my grandmothers house, setting them up in a variety of poses to examine first close up, then from across the room. Then suddenly, there he was draped across a chair staring into space. After trying unsuccessfully to coax him into eating dinner, I finally felt his forehead. It was hot. He climbed up into my lap for a hug and his whole body was hot. I rushed him home wondering where he could have picked up a virus, since we have barely been out in public the past week. He was playing in the dirt in the backyard - was there cat poop out there? Can you suddenly come down with a fever from handling cat poop?

So when he woke up this morning in much the same condition he was in last night, I had to decide: Do I give him something for it? On the one hand, the Tylenol worked wonders before bed last night, bringing down the fever and making him comfortable enough to sleep. On the other hand, fever fights infection. Is it better to let him tough it out in the interest of fighting off the virus? And is it in my best interest to be at home with a whiny 3 year old who is too tired to do anything but lay on the couch, or one who is too sick to go outside but feeling just well enough to be bored and restless?

I went with option #1, hoping more sick now would mean less sick later. And because he was feeling too poorly to play on his own, and I have Thumper to take care of, he was permitted to watch Curious George on TV. That segued directly into Teleubbies, which I also allowed, knowing all along that I would live to rue the day.

Unlike most children who are happy to watch whatever you set them in front of, Bear craves sameness and predictability. And what is more predictable that watching the same episode of the same show over and over and over? All of the lines are the same, delivered the same way with the same corresponding images. Lately, he has even been fixated on one particular 8 minute segment of a Thomas the Tank engine video, opting to watch it over and over as many times as he can get away with, rather than watching the entire video. The Teletubbies, for the uninitiated, are spectacularly annoying on the first pass, but wait -- there's more! They actually replay the same vignettes THREE TIMES IN A ROW WITHIN THE SAME EPISODE! Like chocolate covered marshmallows are for his mother, the Teletubbies are the perfect junk food for Bear.

Midway through the episode, Bear fell asleep on the couch, and I quietly turned the TV off and went to the back of the house to play with Thumper. A half hour later, I heard crying from the living room and went to check on my boy. "What's wrong, sweetie?" I asked.

"I...want...more...tebetubbie!"

I'm doomed.