So I'm p. much hyperventilating.
Because tomorrow Maya starts at
However. This only means one thing to me: We will all get sick within hours of her playing with blocks, coloring with pens, or sharing books at reading time. We will all come down with horrible cold and flu (and small baby tiny precious blonde blue-eyed God Jesus please help us not catch the dreaded stomach flu or the trots or Captain Trips or Rotavirus). And the best part of knowing that Maya and we will all get sick? Is that this shall continue twice a fortnight until the end of time.
If you recall, Maya went though her first day of school before, last September. I was proud of her, worried for her, and incredibly fucking scared of the germs. Oh and of my child being accosted and tortured. But mostly, I am ashamed to admit, the germs.
And then if you also remember, as expected, Maya promptly got sick like the dog in my entry entitled "Threat Level: Midnight."
It had been a new beginning, a new adventure, something for her to look forward to: Look, back then, at my kid all excited to be a groweds-up!! Going to gee-dee SCHOOL!!
BUT. See, Maya has been on what I like to call a "hiatus," taking a sabbatical if you will (pursuing her Ph.D in Play-Doh 101 and her masters in Dirt-Sculpture-Making for the Under Five Crowd, and learning in depth the philosophy behind how to play XBox's Harry Potter and Spelunky.
She was taken out of school, as of last Christmas because (1) she wasn't loving and appreciating school (a gentler way of phrasing her frothing split-pea-spewing beard-rending sackcloth-tearing fits whenever we woke her up at 7:30 am to go to school); (2) it was very pricey and we wanted to save money, especially on a school my kid didn't love; and (3) MOTHERFUCKING COLDS IN OUR MOTHERFUCKING NOSES EVERY MOTHERFUCKING WEEK.
It was just unreal. I couldn't take another second of it. The baby, who was only 4-5 months old at the time, was sick constantly, once for six weeks straight. And she was so new and so fragile and did not handle colds well, getting so congested that I literally thought she'd choke and die in the middle of the night. Silently. Once, on our way to a restaurant to enjoy a little family time, we skipped our plans for a meal and made a quick, last-miunte detour to the local ER because she was struggling so hard to breathe and it sounded like she was fighting to get any air in and was going to suffocate any minute. I was panicking every second of that 10-minute drive. Fuck. I don't know how many people get this, but the common cold can be scary shit.
And might I interject, that since removing Maya from school before Christmas, we have not caught one single solitary cold or flu. Not even a sniffle. Not even a throat tickle. Not one. Nothing. So it's all those filthy little bastards who do not know to wash their hand after the use the potty and who do not sneeze into their sleeve and who dig for gold up they got-damn noses and and then offer my child a bite of their Bunny-Grahams.
---
I like to think now at almost a year and a half years of age, the baby Naomi is stronger and heartier (God knows this child is build like a truck (or built like my one true love, Edgar Martinez)).
Thighs like what. what. what.
And Naomi is so strong and determined and hearty and wily and mischievous and just a ball of fire than I think she can fight off colds more easily, or deal with them more easily as them come. Well, part of me logically thinks so and the other part of me is screaming, "We will have a nicely lovely playdate with some favorite neighbors and enjoy some apple juice and Goldfish and then Naomi will chew on her playmate's Sophie the Giraffe and then catch a cold and will fill head to toe with mucous and die. Dead. Dead of rhinopharyngitis."
Sorry, you played with a kids' favorite rubber toy and now you shall die of dystentery. Fuck you, Sophie.
Or that Maya will have come home from a lovely day at school fingerpainting and baking cookies and playing telephone and cooking in the play kitchen and making macaroni art, and the she will breathe in the vicinity of the baby who will instantly perish.
Because every other time that Naomi has caught one of Maya's (trillions of) colds, she got incredibly sick and churned out snot the way the Amish churn out butter and caught horrible double ear infections and sinus infections like it was her job. Every time. So yeah. Who knows if the baby is stronger now or not. Time will tell.
But still. Maya is off hiatus, is beginning Pre-K tomorrow, and will be bringing home God only knows what kinds of diseases. I can't say I'm prepared for the Onslaught of Sick, but I know it's coming. I know it's coming. I'm trying to steel myself for the inevitable, but that doesn't mean I don't feel like taking two handfuls of Xanax, 27 Klonopin, and two bottles of our very best $3 red wine to try to soothe my worries.
Light a candle for me, child.
Girl. Take a deep breath. And then 72 more. But slowly, because I know you are prone to the hyperventalatio. (like fellatio but much more pleasant). I will pray to the baby jebus that your delicate flower does not track home nasty bum bum germs. If it makes you feel any better Honey Badger is about to start week two of her 2yo class and she has had nary a sniffle. Though I suspect she is the one actually passing the bumbum germs to other people. Today she ate a carrot off the flower at Jason's Deli and then something off the floor of the car (it was so quick i didn't see what). However, the other parents cannot unionize against me and my germy child because I am the room mother...I own that shit!!! Insert evil laugh here.
ReplyDeleteBe strong mama, and may your sweet thang not have a Dirty McBadger like my child in her class :)
ps> Dirty McBadger is very handsy and prone to touching anyone she pleases about the hands and face. We are working on the boundries discussion but it does not seem to be important to her that people do not enjoy being constantly touched.
*dead* at "hyperventilatio."
Deletehahaha. I knew that would appeal to your sick sense of humor :)
Deleteyou can do this, mama jo. may this be a year filled with outings, fun, stretching of self and boundaries, and very little sick.
ReplyDeleteYou nailed it. Let's hope this gives my sweet girl a chance to grow and have fun, experience life, and makes me step outside my comfort zone and learn to be *OK* with that....and, let's pray, yes, very little sick.
DeleteIt will be ok! I hope she loves school and brings home as few germs as possible. You've taught her good hygiene, so I think you'll probably be better off than a lot of families who send their first off to pre-k. You'll be able to deal with it all, and you and she will both enjoy the fun school stories and learning she'll gain.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, I think the anticipation of a thing is way worse than the actual thing (if it's something you're worrying about). Just like the anticipation is awesome if it's something you're excited about! So I hope that you're all jumped in soon. <3 This school year is going to rock for you and for the fam!
Also, when I lived in my tiny (well, not miniscule, but it was about 550 sq ft) apartment years ago, I had that very yellow vacuum. The end.
I did teach her good hygiene--she's great at not touching her eyes or nose (she never rubs at them with her hands), always sneezes into her elbow sleeve, all that jazz, but the thing is, she bites her nails, so I think she gets a lot of other people's bum-bum germs that way. Her fingers are never in her eyes or nose (prime ways to catch colds), but she is always nibbling on them. Sigh. But, you're right, she's better off than many kids, because I've trained her well. I've trained her well.
DeleteAnd that vacuum kicks ass.
Does she have a wee bottle o Handi-Bac in her backpack??? :)
DeleteHave you ever thought about using that nasty-tasting nail polish stuff to stop her from biting her nails? It would break a bad habit & hopefully decrease the finger-bumbumgerm-to-mouth transfer opportunities...sort of a win-win. :D
Oh God we SOOOO used that nasty nail polish stuff for ages and it had no effect. Sigh. I could try again, I suppose, but we gave it more than a fair shot.
DeleteI don't think they'd allow my kid to come in with a whole thing of hand-sani, lest the other children attempt to ingest it, but...
I always, ALWAYS put a Purell hand wipe in her lunchbox, and it always, ALWAYS came back unused (last year), so this time I put a note in her lunchbox saying, "Please have Maya use this Purell wipe before eating lunch. Thanks."
WE SHALL SEE.
She will be ok. She probably will get sick at first. In my experience (and I'm a pediatrician), the first 6months of the first year are the worst. Thereafter, they don't get near as many illnesses, unless they are sticking stuff in their mouths or using water fountains (EWWWWWW!). It seems to be breaks from the cesspool that cause issues. I know that for me, I got sick constantly from work the 1st 6monyhs back after I was off for a year with my son. Now? The only time I get sick is if a kiddo gets a direct hit with snot in my eyes or mouth, which RARELY happens. And my son? He's in prek this year too... It's his 3rd year at preschool... And the only thing he still catchea occasionally is strep. The first year? Constant. And it seems to be that way with the kids I see at the office too. First year of germ exposure
ReplyDeleteIs awful. After that? Just once in awhile.
Good luck!!!
Have you introduced yourself before? I didn't know I had a pediatrician reading my blog. :) Love that, and hello!
DeleteI know (or at least I pray to Jesus) that things get better. But this first year is what I dread so very hard. But I mean, kids never get "immune" to colds, since they always mutate (we continue to get 2-3 per year as adults), so I kind of don't see an end in sight, especially around such little germ-mongers. I'm just afraid of all the sick-time to come. Oh, and stomach flu? I could just die. I am TERRIFIED of anything having to do with vomiting or diarrhea.
This is gonna be a rough 12 months. *cry*
no, I havent introduced myself before. I've been reading for a couple of months though. Still trying to figure out your comment system. Sorry about typos...when that happens, Im usually on my phone at 2 am.
DeleteI will say, different preschools have different rates of illness...and I think somehow that my son's classroom is always one of the least germy - mostly because I see a lot of his classmates, and the first time they come in saying, "well, Billy had a temp of 104 this morning, but I gave some advil and sent him to school anyway..." I firmly inform them that that kind of behavior is completely unacceptable and that if their kid has a fever, they should wait at least 24 hours after it breaks (without help from medicine!) before sending them back to school. It's preschool for pity's sake. And it's 9-2 at that, so it's not like daycare, kwim? These people dont work 8-5, they are generally able to keep their sick kiddos home.
And I do agree that nobody ever gets 100% immune to colds, but you can have partial immunity even if a virus mutates. It's why we do the Chickenpox vaccine, anyway. We only protect against 4 strains...so yeah, it's possible to STILL GET IT. But since you have partial immunity to similar strains, you can respond more quickly and not get nearly as sick as you would have if you caught it with a completely unprepared immune system.
You can totally do this. You can. I promise. SHe wont die. And neither will you.
if it's at all helpful (probably not, but I'll share anyway), most immunologists that I trained with in residency refused to use any cleaner in their houses aside from water and vinegar. Said that the over sanitizing that we do actually sets us up to get much sicker than we would have otherwise. My house? It gets cleaned twice a month (cause I barely have time to cook...) and aside from that? yeah...we dont wear shoes...but...
and yeah, my kids have been known to get a bowl of (dry) food, dump it out, and they (or I) will pick it up, put it back in the bowl and they'll continue eating it...repeatedly (ONLY at my house, not out and about). My 4 yo like I said is rarely sick, and my 1 yo (tomorrow!) has had strep 3 times but only 1 cold in her life...and big brother was in preschool all last year too.
I'm not looking forward to the constant colds our new preschool will bring...Caius has gotten maybe 2-3 colds a year in the past 4.5 years. From the sounds of how these things go, soon it will be 2-3 colds per MONTH. Oh joy. :P
ReplyDeleteAnd not to alarm you, but then there's the new babe to think about. Tiny babies with colds is just an awful, awful thing. But you are different than I am, you expose Caius to many important things. So maybe he won't bring home so much Yuck. And your baby will have your immunities, which unfortunately I failed at.
DeleteEither way. Such is life, right? The joy of gross other kids. ;-)
Not to mention the little babe will be here just in time to experience the height of cold and flu season. :P Oh well.
DeleteI'm keeping my fingers crossed that maybe Caius just has a really good immune system...like you said, I expose him to a lot of things. Hell, we eat at McPlague space and I even let him go back and forth between playing and eating his food (without washing his hands in between). He never gets sick.
(Now I'm afraid you'll judge me and think I'm totally gross and germy!)
I don't judge you, I admire you.
Delete<3