WFMW - The Basket

This is "The Basket." It comes out whenever either of our boys are sick. And since Riley (2yo) just had a two week, double flare-up of strep throat, I though I would share this little convenience.

It began when Tyson (the older) was a few weeks old. Then it wasn't the sick basket; it was the baby basket. Babies need stuff. Lots of stuff. And I realized when I was still on maternity leave that I felt like I was constantly roaming the house to get this or that or whatever Ty needed at the moment.

When we were upstairs, his bulb syringe was downstairs. When we were downstairs, his extra socks were upstairs. We ended up with burp cloths everywhere, and rarely had a clean backup binkie handy when he needed one. I decided to corral all of the baby stuff into one portable place. We kept the baby nail files, extra socks, binkies, burp cloths, etc. in one place. Thus, The Basket was born. It went everywhere the baby went.

Eventually, he grew up a bit and we didn't need it any more.

And then he had his first bout of the flu, and I realized another valuable lesson:

Kids need stuff. Sick kids need lots of stuff. Pretty much now.

So I dug the basket out of the closet and put it to work again. And that's what we do any time either of the boys gets sick. We take the basket out of the closet and fill it with sick kid stuff:

• thermometer
• Motrin
• lip balm
• hand sanitizer
• pad of paper + pen (to record fever, time & dose of meds, etc.)
• lotion (for giving massages to aching little backs & shoulders)
• doctor's card with phone numbers (just in case)
• anything else we might need 

We just keep the basket with the kid. This way there is no need to stumble down the stairs for more Motrin in the middle of the night. That definitely works for me!

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