Lessons from the bag of Ineffective Parenting Tricks

Just when I think I kind of have this parenting thing down, some new situation comes along that proves to me that, nope. Not really. 

Trying to give my daughter eyedrops last week to battle the cold that had spread to her eyes, was a comedy of parenting errors. You'd have thought we told her we'd need to make her eat something green every day for a week. Oh, there was crying. And wailing. And thrashing - the thrashing was probably the worst. She was absolutely terrified by the thought of eyedrops. IT WILL HUUUUUURT IT WILL HUUUUURT she screamed repeatedly, inconsolably.

So I opened my bag of Ineffective Parenting Tricks and tried them all nearly simultaneously.

I asked nicely. I asked not so nicely. I put one in my own eye to show her how it works. I put one on her doll. I put one on my hand. I showed her eyedrop photos on the internet. I  raised my voice. I stroked her hair. I offered her candy. I offered her cookies. I threatened her with no TV. I stopped just short of threatening to send her off to the circus to be raised by clowns.

Really, it was like the worst episode of SuperNanny you've ever seen.

(Or the best. Depending on your perspective.)

So I did what anyone does in this kind of situation: I went to Twitter.

The consensus seemed to be that I lie her down, and put the drop on the outside of her inner eye, then tell her to turn her head to the side and the drop will roll in.

But before I could figure what the hell any of that meant, I came back to a smiling Thalia.

"Daddy put my eyedrop in. It was fun!"

Fun?

"Yes! I lied down on the coach and then I put my feet in the air and I squeeeeeezed my eyes closed then...we did it! And it didn't hurt!"

Uh, wow.

"Mommy?"

"Yes sweetie?"

"Let's do it again!"