Sending sick kids out to play

Germs and bugs are everywhere.  I know this.  We keep a relatively clean home, but we are not anal about sanitizing the place unless someone is really sick.

Right now, we have a sick household...again.

I can't seem to get rid of it.  It goes from head cold to chest cold, kid to kid, to adult. 

When we bring the kids back to the Dr., one of the residents always says: "It's pretty typical to get lots of bugs when the kids are in daycare."  To which I reply, "But, as I've told every other resident in this place, they do not go to day care."  "Ah" they say, unamused "must be your husband bringing things back home from school, or picking up something from the grocery store."  This reassures me to no end.

The only other places we go to that have kids are to the park, and to the YMCA.  The bugs, it seems are everywhere.

So, putting on my Sherlock Holmes cap, I deduce...  if my kids keep getting sick by going out to public places, why don't parents with sick kids keep the sick ones home?

Sure, you have to get that Zumba class in, or swim a few laps, I get that.  But if your kid is sick, please, keep them home!  Please.

I keep my kids home when they could possible pass the bugs to other kids purely because I hope that the Karma I gain by doing the right thing ( in that case I don't really get Karma, huh?) will turn back around for me...

...but it doesn't.  The kids are sick again, this time, worse than before.

Parents, please, I know you have things you want to, or feel as though you need to do.  Your work-out can wait, can that meeting wait too?  Seriously, your kid is getting my kid sick!

The bright side of this, I keep telling myself, is that they are really building up their immune systems.  Aren't they?

However, it could be that he keeps getting sick from the crap he insists on putting in his mouth.  No amount of sanitizer can clean that.

Who knows...

2Y11D: Need a Tissue?

As an adult, you can take care of your cold in any number of ways; OTC medicines, whiskey Hot Toddy's, et al. You can even blow your nose whenever and as often as you like.

When you are 2, it's not that easy.

I hear, it's not the best - well, you're really not supposed to give kids whiskey, or even OTC cold remedies (now-a-days "they" don't even want to give kids meds until they are six!)

Yet still their noses run.

And Run.

And run.

If you're lucky, you can get them to blow into a tissue.

I'm not that lucky.

Perhaps once an hour or so I can get Big D. to blow into a tissue. If only that were the only time his nose ran. Alas, it is not.

All other times, he has "trails"; beautiful, clear, snail trails of boogers that will run down his nose, around his mouth onto his chin and then drip right off his chin without a batted eye.

You'd think that would bother him.

It doesn't.

Today I left a box of tissues out long with grocery bag with dirty ones right next to a squirt bottle of hand sanitizer. We were going to be neat and clean and not get the baby sick.

No one likes a sick baby.

Yet now the baby is sick, too.

For her, the best thing I can do is a what I call "baby neti."

This uncomfortable thing for her requires some saline (warmed to body temp) a large spit cloth/towel and a nasal aspirator.

I turn her on her side with her head facing down a bit, and squirt the warmed saline in one nostril. It comes out the other generally speaking, but it's important to make sure her head is down so she doesn't swallow or choke on it. The gently use the aspirator and get as much as you can.

She hates it, but it works.

No fun there.

---

Back to big D, who is...was watching "All About Trucks" for the umpteenth Time...

He finds the tissues which I left a little too close to the edge of the counter, and before I can get to him, he has torn out every single tissue. And you know what that little genius angel did?

He finally blows his nose.

Into the world biggest tissue.

I guess that's something.