Bribery...got to love it!

We almost made it through the school year without Brooks getting sick. I thought we were in the clear until about 3 weeks ago when Brooks woke up one Sunday night barking like a seal... Jeff and I looked at each other and said, "Croup." So, I took Brooks the next morning and sure enough he had the croup. He was put on an oral steroid. I guess since he has not had to take medicine in so long he decided that he was never going to take medicine again. He fought us tooth and nail. He would purse his lips together and clench his teeth, if we able to get the medcine through that he would spit the medicine out as soon as it got into is mouth. Anyway, the croup eventually went into an upper respiratory infection which we had to get more medicine for because he had a terrible cough. Then about a week after that he woke up from his nap screaming, "My ear hurt!" You guessed it.. we got him quickly to the doctor and he had developed his first ear infection. (The doctor congratulated Brooks on going 2 years 2 months without having one!) So he was prescribed another 10 DAY antibiotic for the ear infection!!! By this point about every shirt Jeff and I had was stained with medicine from all the spitting, coughing, and gagging that Brooks had done with all this medicine. I knew that I had to come up with a plan.. the teacher in me came out and I asked myself what do I do when I want my students to do something they do not want to do.. the light bulb came on...of course.. I BRIBE THEM! So we happened to be at the mall and Brooks has always wanted to jump at this area that is set up with trampoline and bungee cords (I don't know the exact name.) So I told him that if he came home and took his medicine for 5 days then he would get 5 stickers. I explained that when he got 5 stickers then he would get to go jump at the mall. (Jeff didn't think that it would work and that he was too young for "incentives.") We came home and I fixed him a sticker chart and explained it to him again and he took his medicine like a PRO! By the end of the 5 days we would hand him the medicine and he would take it himself. So after 5 days (actually it was after he had taken it for 10 days) he got to go to the mall and jump. He loved it!!!!!!!!!!!


He decorated the sticker chart himself. Get ready, get set

JUMP!