Beck Vass: Help! My toddler has 'roid rage

"'I a dragon, I a dragon,' he repeated." Photo / Getty Images

We've just been to the after-hours doctor for our son, who sometimes gets wheezy when he gets colds.

I'd given him his Ventolin inhaler and he'd started sort of grunting as he exhaled, so in we went.

Unfortunately as we left the house our boy, not-quite-three, had a burst of energy which continued at the clinic.

As we sat in a cubicle directly next to a woman who sounded like she had Whooping Cough, he got really hyped.

He wouldn't sit still and started trying to jump from the chair to the bed.

He jumped up and grabbed a shelf and dangled like he was about to do chin-ups.

As I struggled to contain him, he started running laps on the bed and dive-bombing the pillow. Ugh.

It's really hard trying to tone down a kid who's had the toddler equivalent of a couple of lines of speed.

Last time we came in for this, they got him high on steroids, he went crazy for three hours and then slept. I'd had a sleepless night in a hospital bed and woke up dead. He woke the next day just fine. Then they gave him more steroids.

And here we are again.

If you're going to drug my kid, can't you give me a little something too? This is not an even playing field. And I'm quite hungover from my husband's work Christmas party last night.

As we waited to be seen, our boy started shouting: "Where is my medicine? I! WANT! MY! MEDICINE!"

The entire clinic could hear the battle I was having and a kind nurse came to help me distract him before the doctor informed me that that he was high and performing like an acrobat was because of the Ventolin.

"We're about to make it worse," the doctor said, grinning.

Our boy was given a mask where drugs to make him even more wired were administered via steam.

"I a dragon, I a dragon," he repeated, taking on the nurse's suggestion immediately. I tried to contain him to the bed where he was still trying to dive and jump despite being attached to the steaming tube.

As the doctor left, leaving me to keep the mask on Roid Rage Toddler for FIVE minutes, my boy yelled "heeyaa" and punched me in the right boob.

I wanted to tell him off but he was high and he had a really straight arm as he did it, so I was also a little bit proud.

Then, he started trying to lick my face and began laughing hysterically. When we got home it continued.

"I can fly, I can fly!" he yelled as he leaped from the couch to a window seat one metre away with a large window behind it.

Yeah mate, you are flying. Wish I was.

He whizzed around our house for a few hours and there wasn't a lot we could do about it.

As I did the day's dishes, and my husband watched the rugby league (yip, that's a dig) we realised it was quiet.

We found him in his bed, under his sheets, getting stuck into two packets of corn chips he'd swiped from the kitchen.

Well, at least he was quiet.