Stroke of Genius...

...(a.k.a. spiritual guidance). If you read my previous post, you know we had a bit of a rough week. So sick kids didn't help, but relatively speaking, sick kids was not a big deal. We had croup one week, which was caused by some virus that both the kids ended up getting and by the end of this next week, Preston had developed an ear infection and Dylan had an eye infection. Thankfully very easy to fix with an oral antibiotic for Preston and antibiotic eye drops for Dylan. Here's the bad news. Dylan is quite strong and really determined and the idea of eye drops makes him a little crazy. The first attempt was less than pretty. Marcos even came downstairs asking what was going on during the ordeal. I ended up having to straddle him with my legs tight to his body so his arms couldn't move and holding his head/prying his eye open with my left hand while I put drops in his eyes with my right hand. And he is a pro at stalling so I'd get close to giving him a drop and he'd turn his head quickly and yell, "Mommy, mommy, can I tell you something? I just have one question." Poor kid.

For some reason Dylan has recently become completely obsessed with Star Wars. Why? I don't know. Don't mock, but I can honestly say I missed that whole Star Wars thing growing up so I know it wasn't from me. I'm fine with Star Wars, but I'm just saying, there was no coercion from the parents. I'm guessing it was older cousins and friends who like Star Wars that peeked his interest. Anyway, we borrowed the old VHS tapes and have started watching them together the past week. With Preston being sick, he took a couple naps this week so I'll be honest, I ended up dosing off during most of the movie, knowing Preston was sleeping and Dylan would be totally occupied.

I was trying to figure out a better method for the eye drops, other than possibly needing this to be a two-person job when it hit me. I know it sounds lame, but I really think it was some type of spiritual guidance. I stopped suddenly and said, "Dylan, what was the name of the bad guys on Star Wars again?" His gigantic fit came to a screeching halt when he looked at me with his answer, "battle droids?" "Yeah, that's it. Battle droids," I said. (I really didn't care what they were, I just wanted him thinking about the bad guys.) Here's how the rest of the conversation went. ME: There are battle droids inside your eyes right now and we HAVE to get rid of them. Anakin is in there too trying to fight them, but he needs his light saber. And the light saber is inside these drops. DYLAN: Mom, Anakin already has his light saber. He just needs the force. ME: Oh yeah. Well, we need to get the force to be with him. See this bottle with the force? DYLAN (with much more enthusiasm than I expected): Yeah, I do mom. Okay, we'd better send in the force. He laid down on the ground and put his hands behind his head while I quickly and gently lifted his eyelid and dropped in the eye drop. He kept his eye shut tight for a minute while he talked about killing those battle droids and then opened the other eye for his second drop. He shut that one tight for a minute and then hopped up, thanked me for giving Anakin the force and proceeded to do some killer fighting moves with his pretend light saber.

Marcos walked down the stairs halfway through the procedure and could honestly not believe his eyes. Could this really be the same person who had physically fought me just hours before? It's amazing what a little creativity will do for this child. Not all children would respond this way, but for a kid like Dylan, it was MAGIC. Never underestimate the power of imagination. It really works wonders!