Sick kids, tired mommy

Anyone with kids knows the dread of that first sniffle. No, please don't be sick, please! Hoping against hope, that maybe it's just allergies. With the first kid, it's definite anxiety. When you add a second (or third or sixth), it becomes level 5 panic. Maybe if you keep them apart, disinfect everything, wash hands every five seconds, it won't spread. Yeah, good luck with that, because inevitably, the older kid will sneeze right into the baby's face and then wipe the extra snot on you.

I hate colds, regardless of the severity. What bothers me even more is the parents that send their sick kids out unnecessarily to infect the rest of us. They say, "oh, but it's just a cold", or "little johnny just has allergies", what's the big deal?

Well, the big deal is that some of us have kids that have compromised immune systems. Maybe they were born early, or have a medical condition that makes common illnesses take a bigger toll on them. Little Bear spent 5 days in the hospital last March for RSV, brought home no doubt from Monkey's preschool.

But your kid is healthy and so you don't see it as a big deal. Take your kids to the playground, the mall, the library. Send them to school snotting everywhere. Who cares? Well, I'm that weird mom that leaves the playground when there's a kid hacking up a lung all over the slide. I keep my son home from preschool when he has so much as a sniffle, let alone a runny nose. 

Don't get me wrong, we definitely don't live in a bubble. My kids play in the dirt, we visit plenty of playgrounds, restaurants, hospitals, etc that are literally crawling with germs. I just get frustrated when it seems like things are all running smoothly and then I hear that first sneeze. Nooooooo! That, compounded with not getting any sleep for the past 3 nights have probably contributed to this whiny post. So, on that note, good health to all and goodnight!

Hugs (and sneezes),

-J