My youngest has strep throat for the fourth time this year. Due to various poor decisions on my part, he only just got his first dose of antibiotics an hour ago even though he was diagnosed with strep yesterday. He’s been miserable off and on, but mostly he’s been curled up in the basement diligently chugging Gatorade and watching TV.

This seems like a good moment to share the story of his first word.

He was just a baby, almost eight months old, and he had his first ear infection, although we did not know this at the time. Both kids had been sick, both got better, but then the poor baby got worse with horrible fevers around the clock and what must have been a very painful ear. We hadn’t dealt with an ear infection before, so we thought he was just fighting a new virus and decided to let it run its course.

We all lived in misery for about three days before I dragged him to the doctor and got the ear infection diagnosis. About a day later we were back at the doctor with a very rashy baby and a new diagnosis: amoxicillin allergy. A day or two later we were back again, this time with an azithromycin allergy added to his chart.

Keep in mind that in addition to packing us all up for these doctor visits, we also had to wait at the pharmacy for about a billion hours each time we needed new antibiotics. I was absolutely exhausted from caring for the sick baby for days, the baby was miserable even with huge doses of Tylenol and Advil, and my two-year-old was… well, he was two years old! He was a very busy two-year-old with a lot to do and a lot to say, and he was not good at self-entertaining or waiting (although he is good at both of those things now!).

I turned to the tablet for support, and I turned hard. My oldest had constant tablet time for about three days straight: at home, at the doctor’s office, in the car, at the pharmacy, at meals. And what was the only show he would watch at that point in his life?

Bob the Builder.

I can still sing the whole theme song. Bob couldn’t fix how tired I was, but he could make my life a little easier during the day and he did. God bless Bob the Builder.

Near the end of this small odyssey, my youngest was finally starting to feel better; his rash was clearing up and he was cruising around the living room. I was sitting with my coffee watching my two-year-old on his tablet and wondering if I could get away with this parenting style forever when the baby cruised up to the two-year-old, looked at the tablet screen, and proclaimed, “Bob! Bob! Bob!”

“Good job, little baby!” my oldest said.

“Shit,” I said, and I took the tablet away not long after that.