Pill

ME:Today I swallowed a pill, the pill. See my mom has been helping me learn to swallow a pill in the past few days. Today she gave me the new ADHD pill. It was hard to swallow at first but soon it went down. It was better than last time but I couldn't eat my lunch. It hurt, my stomach couldn't take it. And before dinner my stomach hurt and I felt awful. I had some trouble eating dinner too. But compared to the patch it was easy.It made me do better in my bible study too. It really helped. I feel good about starting this pill, really good.

Ready for Concerta

MOMMY: Daughter has done a fantastic job swallowing pills all week. We even tried something different this morning, as the Concerta pills are a good deal larger than the Zyrteks. So I gave her one ibuprofen pill. I know it's not generally wise to just randomly give ibuprofen, but one pill wasn't going to hurt her--and I needed to know if she could do it. The last thing I need tomorrow when I give her the Concerta is to have her gagging and freaking out over it. It went down fine, so we both feel good about it now. Pill swallowing officially learned! If nothing else, I'm glad we have conquered that little life milestone. (One thing we did learn, for anyone looking for advice on how to do this, is that the pills go down much easier with juice than they do with water. Juice and a dollar. That's my magic formula for pill swallowing.)

Regarding tomorrow, I'm pretty nervous (now, how to keep Daughter from reading this post for the next 48 hours or so?) If the Concerta does to her what the Daytrana did to her, we are so done with medicine. I'll be looking for non-medical options to deal with this. On the other hand, I've had a lot of time to work with her one-on-one this week with homework and studying because we've been cooped up with snow/ice days, and I've really seen how very much she needs help. I desperately want this to help, but I desperately want it to help without any ill side effects. Are those mutually exclusive desires?

An unpleasant new task

MOMMY: This ADHD medicine business means Daughter and I must deal with a little issue we have been putting off: learning to swallow pills. UGH. We're scheduled to start the new medication next weekend (I could try it now but refuse to do until a weekend when I can watch her like a hawk for two days before I send her off to school "medicated.") So we have this week to learn this dreaded pill-swallowing business.

Pediatrician suggested we practice with Tic-Tacs. Counselor suggested hiding them in applesauce. I just picked up her Zyrtek (allergy medicine) in pill form rather than chewable and offered her a dollar for each one she could get down this week. For real! Don't worry, I'll only let her have one a day. It didn't work yesterday, but this morning that pill went right down.

Am I terrible? Any other moms out there with other tips for teaching kids to swallow pills? I've told Daughter that at 10 it's time she learn anyway.