Medicines should be labeled more accurately. "Warning: May cause excitability in children" should actually read, "WARNING!!! Will cause mind-numbing stupor in parents!".
As My Wife and I attempted to watch a movie last night, my five-year-old embarked upon his six hour talk marathon fueled by his prescription cough medicine. He has a cold with a cough at the moment, not that that slows him down.
I missed the first few minutes of the movie while trying to fix a program on my son's computer, this was foreshadowing. Throughout the course of the movie while straining to hear the dialogue over the non-stop verbal barrage we also had to play tag, be adorned with Rugrat tattoos and discuss the decorations for his birthday party which is not until December.
Clueless as I am, I said to My Wife, "Wow, he's really wound up tonight."
She replied, nonchalantly, "It's the cough medicine. It always has that effect on him."
"What?!? Are you crazy?!! Why would you give him something to make him more hyper?"
"Look at him," she said quietly, "He's only coughed one since I gave him the medicine."
"Yeah, but..." I mumbled.
"You have to take the bad with the good," she said.
And I couldn't be upset with my son, even though he had worn me out with the constant sound of his little voice, because he was being very sweet despite feeling so bad.
When he told me, "Daddy, you can have the Chuckie tattoo because you're my best friend," I knew My Wife was right, you have to take the bad with the good.
And, in hindsight, sometimes the bad isn't really all that bad.