Monday, November 13, 2006

Sick Day With Matthew

I'm at home today with Matthew, who has black throat. Well, that's what he calls it. His throat is sore. I looked at it with the flashlight this morning and told him that it was red. When Daddy walked in the room, I asked, "What color is your throat, Matthew?" He responded, "Black!"

When Matthew is sick, he's pretty pathetic until the Advil kicks in. After that, you can hardly tell he's sick or feeling even remotely unwell. When the Advil wears off, he's weepy, clingy and impatient again. It's really sad and all he wants is to be held until the medicine starts to work. On top of that, his throat is sore, so he is refusing to swallow; needless to say, we are both covered in drool. At this point, I don't even bother to change my shirt, because it will just be drool-covered again soon.

For entertainment, we've been watching Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer. Our cable service offers an "on demand" system, which we subscribe to, so we can watch Blue or Dora when ever we want, commercial free. This service costs extra, but on days like today, it's worth it.

However, from time to time the "on demand" doesn't work (we have no idea why, and neither do the cable people) -- it's just unavailable. A three year old doesn't understand this, especially since it just worked a little while ago. A few minutes ago, the "on demand" was not available, so I switched it to the Disney channel. This was not acceptable to Matthew, because the shows were interrupted with COMMERCIALS. How dare they interrupt his show? He does not have the time or patience to deal with 2 minute blocks of advertisements. He has repeatedly expressed his discontent by informing me every time a commercial comes on that the television isn't working.

I've reassured him each time that the Little Mermaid will be right back, he just has to suffer through the ads for Barbies and Elmos and beach vacations. (Yes, they advertise vacation packages on kids channels -- shows you who has the purchasing power in the household, doesn't it?) He's just not happy about this.

I want to tell him how lucky he is to even have the Disney channel, as I remember a time before cable, when the only shows on during the day were game shows and soap operas. Back in the day, we had to wait until 3 pm for the Superstation (Ted Turner's WTBS) to start showing Tom and Jerry. But, he's too young to even comprehend life without television.

So, I'm spending my day watching kiddie shows and taking advantage of the wonderful period of time between Advil dosages.

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