Catch-Up.

Random fact of the day: In my world where everything has horrible germs on it, and I can't touch anything, I like to delude myself that germs cannot live on paper or cloth. Sometimes it's all that gets me through in life. I try to force myself to not wash my hands after touching papers that people have handed me, or to die a thousand deaths at sorting through some clothes someone donated to me (OK OK I STILL HAVE TO WASH AFTER THAT SECOND PART). But knowing that germs are everywhere, I still like to pretend they're not on fabric or paper. It gets me by, thinking those are safer to touch than, say, doorknobs and toilet flushers and restaurant menus and EVERYTHING ELSE IN THIS GODFORSAKEN WORLD. I like to think paper and cloth/fabric can't harbor germs. Even though I know I'm wrong. But let me enjoy my fantasy world.

This holds true except for USPS mail. After I open my mail I wash my hands with a quickness. Because, that's shit's been from New Jersey to Texas to Portland to Seattle and touched by millions of bum-bum germs and I can't have that.

But since you can't soak books in bleach before reading (yea though I've given this much thought and have attempted to perfect a scenario in which this is plausible), I have to take my chances and just bite the bullet and go for it and OMG TOUCH THINGS SOMETIMES.

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In other news, Maya is back in Pre-K, and she's taking swimming lessons the same day, so our Mondays and Thursdays are really super busy. Stresses me out, the getting up early and the wrangling two kids just to get Maya home from school (unbuckling the giant heavy baby from her mystery carseat contraption just to take her inside for 340 second to pick up my big girl, the load everyone up, sani some hands, then go home and have Maya take off her shoes, strip down to her nudey pants--

--and wash her hands and wash my hands and use hand-sani again, and clean the baby and clean the lunchbox and just generally disinfect. Coming home from anywhere it far more complicated and stressful than packing up to go OUT, even though going out means loading up the entire house and the proverbial kitchen sink. Because coming home means there has to be a system in place whereby the kids' shoes are off and clothes are off and hands and clothes are cleaned immed before they touch anything. It's touch to wrangle--it's hard with just two kids--how do OCDers with more kids handle it?

Plus, Maya is a major nail-biter and always has her fingers in her mouth. I've trained her well not to touch her eyes or nose, but she bites her nails on the constant. Her fingers are always in the mouth. This makes kitty angry.

 So surely cold and flu germs are having a party in there, all up in her mouth from her grody nails. Good times.

As for swim class, it's driving my nuts. Maya has a good time just bobbing about in the ass soup bum-bum chowder water, but there's got to be more than taking one turn every 6 kids just to take one around a very small swimming zone, with no real instruction (the instructors just carry the kids through the water basically). I look at it like, it's a chance to get poor stifled Maya out of the house and do something that she enjoys, but I can't help wish we were getting our money's worth. They also scam us on time--classes are half an hour but we're lucky to get 20 minutes of time out of it, split among a whole bunch of kids. You can only spend so much tie going over "What's a pool rule?" (where the kids have no idea what he's even asking) or being asked "How do we use a paddle board, to we sit on it? Do we ride it like a horse? Nooooo!" before the kids are finally asked to jump in. And he doesn't teach kids to jump far without help (he underestimates their bravery), or to bob underwater, or other important things. I want some technique taught, and I'm not finding it. Oh well. We'll give it a few more tries before deciding whether to continue.

Either way, having Pre-K and swim on the same day is stressful to the max. I am a person who does not like to have anything on my schedule, anything looming in the future, appointments, dates with friends, doctors, etc. I look at my schedule and see flu shot vax appointments, routine vax appointments, play dates, coffee with a good friend, school, swim, and an upcoming birthday to plan, and I get really overwhelmed. I know I should be able to take this day by day, moment by moment, but I get so caught up in the overwhelmitude.

I just feel like I'm not equipped to deal with daily life. I mean, daily life means getting up early, getting breakfast going, packing lunches, taking the kids to school or playdates, trying to squeeze in the baby's nap, running errands, picking up Maya from school, usually making a Starbucks run for her for a kids' hot chocolate (because she's spoiled like that), and oh yes, cleaning this endless pit of a house that I cannot stay on top of. For someone who panics easily, it's tough to want to do anything or go anywhere, but when I give into that, that's just perpetuates the evil cycle of isolation and loneliness and depression. Then I just stay at home more or want to cancel every appointment on the book or whatever.

I fully expected life to get a little more assbutt difficult after Maya started Pre-K, and I'm trying to take it in stride, but the very moment that Maya comes home with the stomach flu or rotavirus H1N1, my first instinct will be to withdraw her from school again. Which I can't. It's not an option this time. Kid's gotta go to school. Mama has to suck it up.

So I guess we're in for it. A year or two of sick ALL the time,

Gotta put in my big-girl panties and buck up. But it's just so hard. I live with constant stress that eats away at my at night and makes me wake up at 4 am thinking 23749023709432 thoughts, none of which I can really control, but all of which upset me anyway. I'm a work in progress, but I sure as shit hope to see some progress soon.

Pre-K-THXBYE.

So I'm p. much hyperventilating.

Because tomorrow Maya starts at the Cesspool school again. She'll be in Pre-K this year, not just preschool. Kid is grown' up. Sniff.

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.

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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.

Off-Topic Tuesday.

An off-topic post having nothing to do with bum-bum germs, because I can, and because my kid is really quite cute.

I call this one:

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Next up: A video blog wherein same cute kid talks about why handwashing is important.

Threat Level: Midnight

Nah, I'm not really sorry. And my opinions on the Hygiene Hypothesis remain the same. But I do have to report in:

MY KID GOT SICK.

She has spent one day in preschool in her entire life, and she is now sick. Sneezing and stuffy. Awesome.

But I don't believe it's because she's a Bubble Kid. Since after all, even non-Bubble-Kids like Dar's get sick their first day, which has been a recent topic of discussion. :(

I guess it's just as a person who does not have OCD recently wrote: "Schools are a cesspool of germ, disease and horror. And that's just the staff room. Throw kids into the mix and you might as well just wrap yourself up in a bubble and stay home."

But fuck, man. Really? The first day? Now I know just how Darlena felt, except hers was Times Two.

(Also; I'm sure, positively sure, that no one out there is thinking, "Serves her right for being such a germ-freak," right? Right? Because it's my kid who's suffering. So this doesn't "serve anyone right." But I'm sure none of you would be so cruel as to think that.)

So now all I can do is pray to the Patron Saint of Five Month Olds and ask for mercy that Naomi not get sick.   :/

Panic Threat Level: Red.

Who am I kidding. Make that, Threat Level: Midnight.

And Now I Bring You, OUR First Day at the Cesspool!

That is to say, Preschool.

So yes. Today was Maya's first day at preschool. A day I have been dreading for months.

We took a tour of the place back in early spring, and we liked everything we saw and heard, except of course for our tour-guide saying, "Yeah, your kid's gonna be sick p. much constantly." (OMG SEE RECENT ENTRIES OMG.)

We had previously asked our friends for school recommendations, then we visited the school, asked a million questions, walked about, investigated, saw Maya play and interact, asked a million more questions, and, of course, took advantage of their sign-up-now-receive-one-free-month-later deal.

We filled out a zillion forms, one of which asked us what our main areas of concern are. The options were things like:

[] Reading
[] Socialization
[] Safety
[] Creativity
[] Hygiene

And so you know what I did. I don't even have to tell you what I did. I not only checked:

[x] Hygiene

but I put about five exclamation points after it. !!!!!111@

...And then, feeling guilty, I also added a halfhearted, pathetic exclamation mark or two next to: 

[x] Safety. !! 

Because what mother is more concerned about germs than about strangers stealing their offspring?

The headmistress amusedly said, "It seems you are concerned about germs." I felt sheepish.

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Anyway, Maya started school this morning. We were up around 7 am, a departure from the kids' usual 9:15 am wake-up.

(The baby was all, you woke me up for this shit?)

And with us we took all paperwork, her required items (change of clothes, "comfort items," food, etc.), and we were off.

Maya and her saweeeet backpack and matching lunchbox, that she picked out herself:

We drove to school...

We walked her in...

She watched, waited, hesitant, observing...

We gave her words of encouragement ("I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, 

and doggone it, people LIKE me!")...

And then we said goodbye.

And inside my heart, I was still all,

...but like everything I do as a mother with intense OCD, I just did it. 

I said a quick prayer to the Patron Saint of Cesspools, and I said goodbye to my firstborn.

...But, I mean, then I went home and took a nap with the baby and before I knew it, it was time to pick Maya up. 

Whatevz.

Anyway, first day: SURVIVED. I am doing remarkably well. :)  A friend of mine recently commented, "You can't know for sure that Maya is going to be one of the kids who gets a lot of colds."

To which I replied, "Too true. And I'm hoping she's not, if only just to prove that my Bubble Kid doesn't catch every germ that blows her way."