Last week Liam had a bad cold and felt awful. Two or three times he was given a dose of baby tylenol. He has become an addict. At least once a day since then he will start fake (and I mean obviously fake) crying and insist that his head hurts and he NEEDS "the pink stuff" because his head hurts. Don't get me wrong. I love my kiddo and I don't want him to hurt, but when he can't tell me where his head hurts, and fake cries out of nowhere as often as he does about wanting "the pink stuff" I got suspicious.
Since Liam looks fine, isn't too warm, eats, sleeps, and plays normally I have every reason to believe that he is faking. I decided today to try out the placebo effect on him.
*insert evil but well-meaning laugh here*
He went down for his nap today and ten minutes later started to loudly fake cry that his head hurt. He had tons of Halloween candy left, so I grabbed a packet of Smarties out of his stash and took out two. I walked into his room and told him that we were out of baby tylenol but if he ate these they would make his head feel better. He appeared interested and ate them very purposefully. I instructed him to wash them down with lots of water (he never wants to drink enough water so I thought I'd kill two birds...). He nodded and laid back down in bed. Haven't heard a peep from him since, and that was several hours ago.
Score one for placebos.
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