"Momma, I'm sick," Alexis whined from the back seat.
"No, you're not," I told her. Compassion? What's that?
"YES, I AM," she insisted, straining her voice just enough to make herself cough.
Cringing, I desperately looked around for some riot gear or an eject button or something. ANYTHING BUT COUGHING.
The kid went on talking and fussing some more, continuing to cause herself to turn what was probably a tickle in her throat into a full-blown cough. "You need to take a drink of water," I told her. The "And stop talking" was implied.
"I dooon't haaave any waaaaaater," she whined.
Of course she didn't. Just because I put a bottle in her cup holder at least twice per week doesn't mean it will be there. She's famous for crying that she doesn't have water, even as she is the one who continuously takes it into the house. Someday when she's the mother of her own children and complains about how they can't leave things where they belong, I'm going to pull out my best Nelson "HA-HA" impression. And a NEENER NEENER.
"We'll be home in five minutes. Just hang tight," I told her.
"But, Momma!" *cough*cough*cough* "I'm sooo sick," she whined some more.
"Alexis, you just have a frog in your throat," I told her. I already knew she didn't have a fever or swollen tonsils or anything. It was Just. A. Cough.
"I do NOT have a frog in my froat!" she wailed.
"Yes, you do. There's a frog in your throat and it's making you cough," I told her.
"But! But! But! I didn't see a frog go in my mouf! I would have seen it!" she replied, her voice tinged with desperation.
Fighting the urge to laugh at her literal interpretation, I told her that it probably crawled into her mouth when she was asleep. Compassion? What's that?
She was PISSED. "NO, IT DID NOT. THERE IS NO FROG IN MY FROAT." she insisted.
"OK, but if there's isn't a frog in there, why are you coughing? Doesn't your throat tickle?" I asked.
She thought for a minute before getting a fearful look in her eye and confirming that, yes, her throat did sort of tickle.
Of course, no evil parenting deed goes unpunished. The cough grew legs overnight. It gave the kid cause to be up and wanting to destroy the universe more times than I ever remember her being up as a newborn. Seven times in six hours? Or was it eight times? Each time she popped into my face and forced my eyelids open with the words, "Make the frog go away, Momma."
Stupid frog.
