Self Determination

 Mrs. LIAYF and I were a bit creeped out by something that transpired the other night.

We were sleeping soundly at around 4:00 in the morning on Saturday when Lukas woke up crying loudly.  After waiting a minute to make sure he wasn't just sobbing in his sleep, I opened the door to find him standing in the dark whimpering.

"I don't feel well" were the first words out of his mouth.  This was followed shortly by "I need to go to the hospital daddy."

"What? Where does it hurt?" I asked him as I picked him up and held him in my arms.  He pointed to his belly.  Shortly thereafter, upon hearing what had transpired Mrs. LIAYF entered the room.

"I need to go to the Doctor Mommy.  It hurts." he firmly stated as, feeling him squirming to be let down, I obliged.  He then walked past her, opened the gate at the top of our stairs and started down them. 

His mother and I exchanged worried glances, before following him down the steps.  He made it to the foyer and was picking out a coat when she scooped him up and took him to the kitchen.  Once in there, we sat him down further assessed the situation.  We knew from holding him that he wasn't running a fever.  We pressed on the area where he had pointed, but there was no painful reaction. "You didn't swallow anything Like Curious George, did you?" I asked.  "No."

"Are you hungry?" Mrs. LIAYF queried.  He had eaten a decent meal.  "No. I just don't feel well." "I need to go to the doctor" he continued.

"Would you like some cereal?"  his mother then asked.  To that he nodded yes so we fed him what was left of a box of Wheat Chex, and then a large bowl of vanilla yogurt both of which he ate up heartily.

"You were hungry Buddy" I mentioned.  He had calmed by this time and seemed otherwise fine.  "Have you been pretending to be doctors at school?" Mrs. LIAYF then threw out there.  We hadn't been at all at home. 

"Hmmm....sometimes" was his response.  Though it didn't sound like it had been the previous day.

With that we carried him back upstairs and brought him to bed to sleep with us, for the first time since he was an infant. We wanted to monitor him.  At that he went right to sleep and we all woke up a couple hours later.

He seemed fine so I made pancakes and eggs, and together we watched several episodes of The Muppet Show.  Before eating though, he once again mentioned that he didn't feel well.  However, after the devouring the pancakes with peanut butter he seemed to feel much better.

Thankfully, he hasn't mentioned needing to go to the doctor since.  Obviously, we are keeping a close eye on his behavior but I think the diagnosis may be that he was just hungry and had a bit of an upset stomach.

Still, that struck both of us as a pretty bizarre sequence of events. Certainly nothing like we have experienced before.

How about you, readers?  Have any of you ever dealt with anything similar with your young kids?