Child Logic

Vinny has a cough and a bit of a cold, so yesterday morning I gave him some children's cough syrup before school.  I went into the kitchen with the breakfast dishes and left him at the table to drink it down.  While I was rinsing them off in the sink, I heard him say something to the effect of, "I wonder if this would help my nose, too."

When I returned to the dining room, I saw that his nose was all red -- the same color as the cough syrup.  He had tried snorting some of it into his nose, I soon found out after he started screaming in pain!  He kept telling me it was an accident -- but I think it was only an accident in the sense that it unexpectedly hurt him.

I helped him blow his nose and get all the cough syrup out.  He was a little freaked out because he mistook the red dye in the cough syrup for blood -- probably because his nose was burning so badly.  He whimpered for a while but eventually the pain went away.  I stressed to him the importance of using medicines as they are supposed to be used.  My doctor prescribed me some nasal spray in an effort to help my sad sniffer -- and I explained to Vinny that if I swallowed the medicine meant to be sniffed, I would be in trouble.  Hopefully he understood, but even if he didn't, I suspect that this experience will warn him off of trying to snort any kind of illicit drugs!