Acidophilus: Probiotics or acid?

Yesterday J got up with the kids so I could sleep in (you know you’re a parent when “sleeping in” is until 730am). After I got out of the shower H came running up the stairs crying about her probiotics and how she needed a new one. I told her very calmly that she needed to go downstairs and tell Papa she would like a probiotic. It was okay if she’d all ready had one, Momma said it was fine. But I emphasized that she needed to use nice words and a nice tone of voice, because if she was whining to Papa the way she was to me, he’d never understand her.

So off she went and I didn’t think about the incident again until that night after the kids were in bed and J and I were hanging out in the kitchen while I baked cookies for our Valentine’s play date today.

“Oh, the probiotics are on the counter. You should put them in the fridge,” J told me while I was putting cookies into the oven.

“What are they doing on the counter? They shouldn’t be left out.” I quickly returned them to their cold home.

J shook his head, that sad look of defeat on his face. “You have to give the kids their probiotics from now on. I can’t do it,” he told me.

I looked at him, my eyebrows highs. “What’s so hard about it?”

“Well,” he began. “Your daughter asked me for some probiotics. I told her she’d have to get them since I wasn’t entirely sure where they were located at in the fridge. She gets them out and of course B wants one too. I hand it to him and try to break the capsule open, but he wants the whole thing, so I just let him have it. [Note: I typically pull the capsule apart and pour the probiotic powder into B’s mouth for him] Then H asked me to open hers, so I proceeded to do so, but the second it touched her tongue she started screaming and spitting and trying to wipe it out of her mouth. She’s running around the house in circles freaking out, I’m certain I’ve just put acid in her mouth because I didn’t even check the bottle, I just assumed she knew what it was, and I’m also trying to fish the unopened capsule out of B’s mouth before he bites it open and releases the same acid into his mouth.”

At this point, between the story, understanding what was going on, and his elaborate animation, I was laughing so hard there were tears.

“You can only open the capsule for her. You can’t pour it into her mouth. She likes to do that herself. You clearly don’t understand what it’s like to be almost 3.”

“Yeah,” he told me flatly. “I know that now. But I’m not risking the chance of giving our kids acid ever again. Especially when the bottle just says ‘acidophilus’ so it’s clearly telling me it’s acid.”

Uh huh. That’s what it says…