Calli and Daddy crack each other up! Ok, Calli cracks Daddy up...

It has been said that laughter is the best medicine. I am a huge advocate of this. I laugh all the time.

I laugh when I’m happy.

I laugh when I’m nervous.

I laugh when something’s funny.

Most of all? I laugh at my kids.

It’s funny how kids know exactly what to do. They are probably more in tune with your likes and needs than any of your adult friends.

Just a few examples:

The other day, Calli, the two year old, tried to sing along to the CD I had just bought for Kat, the fifteen year old. We had just scooped up The Ting Tings, were listening to it in the car, and I hear Calli behind me singing “Name, name, name! Name name name!” (‘That’s Not My Name!’)

The wife and I were discussing some kind of adult drudgery (bills, etc.) one morning when from the bedroom we hear “SCHWOOOOO!” and out runs a fully awake Calli, arms outstretched Superman-style. (She woke up flying!)

When Kat was four or five, we were watching ‘The Batman Superman Movie’ and I said something about the Joker being a clown. Brow furrowed, she slowly turned and said deliberately, “Joker is NOT a clown!”

Calli had a case of the gimmes the other night. Our conversation went like this:

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“Daddy! Gimme popcorn!”

“Calli, what do we say?”

“Want it! Gimme popcorn!”

“Calli, do we say please?”

*Pause*

“Ooohh, yeah. ‘Please’ is ‘gimme’, nice.”

A child’s laughter is genuine. A child doesn’t know what a courtesy laugh is. They laugh when you’re really being funny, or you just hurt yourself. Either way, having a child in the home is definitely THE BEST way to brighten up the room.

Bottom line: have more kids! You couldn’t pay a comedian or watch enough farting pandas on YouTube for this much entertainment!

Can we really go from this...

My two year old does not get sick. In her close to two and a half years of life, Calli has been sick twice that I remember. But when she does get sick, it’s usually a doozy!

When she was about eighteen months old she caught a flu that had her vomiting so severely that she became dehydrated. She looked pale and her eyes looked sunken. We lived in Missouri at the time, and the doctor gave her an I.V. of fluids and medicines to make her feel better. The I.V. succeeded in hydrating her, but it still took about another week for her to get 100% better.

When my fifteen year old stepdaughter was little it seemed like the doctors were always telling us to use different over the counter drugs for the differing symptoms of her illnesses.

Well, Calli’s sick again, this time it seems with the common cold. She ran a slight fever for a couple of days, she has a runny nose and a cough. We gave her some Motrin meant for children her size of 27 pounds for the fever, but we really wanted to do something about that cough. I went to my local pharmacy and started scanning the shelves.

Children’s Tylenol Plus for colds said DO NOT use for children under 4.

Children’s Mucinex said DO NOT use for children under 4.

Children’s Dimetapp said DO NOT use for children under 4.

…and so on until I started getting offended by all the capital letters. Hey, medicine company bullies! I just want to help my kid feel better! Don’t YELL AT ME!!!

So I found a bag of Little Colds Saf-T-Pops by Little Remedies Products and walked to the ‘Pharmacist Consultation’ window. I asked the pharmacist what I could give my two year old for a cough.

Her answer was simple enough: Nothing.

“There’s a lot more literature about parents overdosing their kids these days.” She told me.

I showed her the Saf-T-Pops. “What about these?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s perfect!” she said. “Any kind of lollipops help get the saliva going and lubricate the throat. Where did you get that?”

I laughed, “Right over there, in your cough and cold section.”

“I might just buy some for my two year old!” she said.

She also recommended a humidifier, since we live at a high altitude and it’s so dry here.

So I bought the Pops and when I got home, I really studied the package. The directions read, ‘Adults and children 2 years and over: allow to dissolve slowly in the mouth. Do not chew.’

Adults too? Since Calli had so graciously shared this cold with her mother and I, I allowed her to share her Pops with her parents. We all sat around sucking on lollipops and watching movies. The lollipops do taste great. They have Vitamin C and Zinc in them, but unlike other Zinc cough drops I’ve tried, they don’t taste like your sucking on a nickel. The bag has cherry, watermelon, orange, and grape flavors, so there’s something in there for everyone!

...to this?

We’ve also all been sucking down the orange juice (I prefer Simply Orange) and just generally taking it easy, which is the best way to get out of the way and let your miraculous body do it’s thing.

I can’t help but think that even as adults, we can all make do with a little less medicines in our lives. They generally just treat the symptoms anyway. So just use your cold as the perfect excuse to kick back, read that book you’ve been meaning to get to, and let your body take care of the rest.

To quote Little Remedies’ slogan: Sometimes the best medicine is no medicine.