It would seem that L. and I are trying to set a world record. We’re seeing if we can be the mother-son team that is sick for the most days in September. I don’t know who else is competing, but I’m pretty sure we’re winning. By my calculations, we’ve been healthy a grand total of 4.5 days this month, and have spent the rest of September sneezing, coughing, feverish, coughing more, on medication, coughing, wiping runny noses…oh, and did I mention the coughing? ‘Cause there’s been some.

The current germ has been hanging around for almost two weeks and his fever zipped up to 102 on Wednesday, so yesterday, I was the dutiful mother and took L. to the pediatrician. My husband has suspected that L. and I are both afflicted with either bronchitis or pneumonia, but I was happy to tell him that L. is officially lung-disease-free. He’s also ear-infection-free. Which means he has a mystery illness. In the doctor’s words, “Could this be one virus on top of another? Yes. Could this be a type of ‘bacterial overlay’? Yes. Could this just be a nagging virus that he might be able to fight off? Yes. We just don’t know.”

And so apparently, when “we just don’t know,” and when a disease lingers for a little too long, we prescribe antibiotics.

A prescription for antibiotics might make some moms happy — after all, if there is a sneaky little bacteria in there, the antibiotics will take care of it. As for me, however…as soon as she mentioned “antibiotic,” a sense of dread overcame me.

You see, L. is not exactly an eager medicine-taker. He spits, he squirms, he hits, he yells, and when all else fails, he throws up. Granted, it’s been a while since his last bacterial infection, but during that particular escapade with amoxicillin, he threw up numerous times (pink stains are lovely), he animatedly resisted all attempts to jam shove insert the liquid-laden syringe into his mouth, and he generally made his displeasure well-known. In the end, he had to go into the pediatrician’s office for an antibiotic shot in the leg. Lots of fun.

This was not an isolated case; I could list numerous medicines that have gone into his little body, and then were promptly ejected.

So a prescription did not exactly fill me with joy.

This pediatrician, however, was more than willing to listen to my woes, my concerns, the fact that I didn’t want to be puked on again. And she looked through her database o’ drugs to see which one might fit our situation. In the end, she prescribed one that only has to be taken once per day, and one whose dose is only one-third that of the amoxicillin.

So far, I’ve been able to trick force convince L. to take two doses, with just a wee bit of bribery. With no puking. It’s a beautiful thing. Of course, this antibiotic has turned his poop brick-red, but we won’t discuss that right now. (Oh, he’s just going to love me when he gets older and sees how I’ve blogged about his poop.)

In the meantime, C. is a little jealous that L. “gets to have” antibiotics. Yes, my older boy is just the opposite of L., and always loved getting the pink medicine, or the white medicine, or whatever color medicine he had to take.

I’m hoping that L. and I have a healthier October, and that we don’t make C. jealous by getting to take more yummy medicine.