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Whoooo let the sick kids out?
I just got back from a toddlers action class with my 2-year-old. After promptly going into damage control and hosing myself and my kid down with antibacterial liquid soap (Dettoll sometimes gets me a bit high -mmm, hospital smell…) I decided I desperately needed to get something off my chest, and it wasn’t just phlegm!
Today’s class was actually mild in terms of virus levels. We only had to wipe up 1 small pile of baby puke (gross) near where we were sitting. As an added bonus, there were also very few cases of chronic coughing (whooping-cough?) and outright infection. Probably the worst thing I saw was a little boy who had become an expert in blowing green snot bubbles out 1 nostril in tune to the music – much to his mother’s delight and amusement! (EWWWW)
Mind you - last week and the week before there was a little guy in our class who had yellow ‘stuff’ oozing out of his right ear and I didn’t know if I should take my kid and run, or if the little boy just had a bit of wax in his ear. Needless to say, the guy in question wasn’t present at today’s class – someone had the sense to either get that ear seen to, or cleaned, or something!
Every time I attend these classes with my son, I cringe and have to physically restrain myself from bolting out the door, just so my little boy can have a bit of fun. I don’t want to be complete joy-kill of course so I’ve tried to relax (for the sake of my kids) and now I think I’ve reached a point where I am trying really hard not to shelter my boys by avoiding communal playgrounds and activities.
But I know that each time I visit these places, there’s a high risk that we will be filling those antibiotic prescriptions yet again because other mothers didn’t have the courtesy to LEAVE THEIR SICK KIDS AT HOME that day!
In a nutshell, I’m sick, sick, sick of people dragging their sick kids out to communal kids activities. I’ve actually calmed down a lot in the past 2 years – I used to freak out by a little bit of a runny nose or slight cough. If someone sneezed near me and my kids I would fly off in a huff cursing the offending disease-spreader as I made a dash for it and scrubbed myself and kids in antibacterial hand lotion! Now, I’ve really mellowed, well as best as I can, and I try to look past the more minor illnesses that are unavoidable. But what still gets me is the really, really infectious kids being dragged out to a kids activity.
It’s just not fair to the other kids, and it’s not fair to the sick kid – who would, I am sure benefit more from tender mummy cuddles and restful play at home, indoors, as opposed to hyper jumping and communal play with other unsuspecting kids.
Don’t get me wrong, I too have been guilty of taking a sick kid out, but only on the very rare occasion – and only when absolutely crucial – like a visit to the doctor (unavoidable) or a school pick up (where I dash in and out and avoid exposure to other kids).
I just get fed up with being one of the few mothers who, at the first sign of illness will nip it in the bud, get the requisite drugs for my kid, and limit any unnecessary exposure to others as best as possible.
When my eldest son is not well, I keep him home with me (even though it’s the harder option). I truly get that some mothers sometimes just don’t have any options. Like mothers who cannot take off from work because of a slack boss or pressure in the workplace, or other mothers who just have too many other kids to keep track of, so that their ‘mildly’ sick kid/s must be sent to school just to ease the burden.
Still, it’s incredibly selfish to make the other kids suffer and I know my son will be better off at home where he can rest in his own bed and chill to get better. When it comes to school, I think deal breakers are temperatures, coughing, any colour snot that goes beyond transparent (my worst!), inexplicable rashes, ear infections and anything at all to do with lice (gross gross gross).
I’ve often considered commissioning some glaringly graphic, in-your-face posters (like the ones you see at the hospitals or doctors waiting rooms) which I could affix to the entrance of all schools, playgroups, kids activities and yes, even at the front door to private home before playdates that reads:
If you can read this sign then you are too close to the entrance of this facility and your kid is too close to the other HEALTHY kids!
What’s more if you are that selfish, or just plain ignorant or nonchalant about the whole thing a’sick kid thing’ and you’re blatantly attempting to smuggle your sick kid/s in here, please, for the love of Gd, back the hell up, step away from the door and push your pram out of here quick-smart before you make anyone else sick and they have to get onto antibiotics because you’re too selfish to get your sick kid seen to.
Then, please get your kid/s sorted, and come back when you know that they’re better and/or have been immunised up to date!
So there, by employing a simple protocol of full disclosure and abolishing the denial, we can heal the world, so to speak, for the sake of our fellow mothers and comrades in arms to make life easier for each other in the long run.
Yes, I know I’m preaching now, (ho-hum) but if we all took responsibility properly when our kids were sick, it would no doubt, drastically reduce the unnecessary spread of virus and disease.
I’m getting all nasally and fluey and itchy just thinking about all this now – prescription drugs here I come (hope the cough syrup’s tooty fruity flavour – yum!
Anyone seen my lost marbles?
Lately everything I have been doing is completely absent-minded, forgetful, and verging on negligent.
I am so out of it that I am beginning to think that either I must be going senile, or early demetia has set in? I know it cant be ‘baby brain‘ – how could I possibly claim that as an excuse 2 years after the fact?
Even the most mundane things are complicated for me to process, I am struggling to set my brain on track and the exhaustion from having an almost 2 year old who has harnessed the power of the tantrum and can sustain all night no-bed strikes for the entire night every night is probably not going to help!
I really, really hope that this is not permanent damage and that things will improve because I can’t continue on this path of destruction – denting and pronging my poor old car every time I’m in it, not concentrating, being short with my kids
and husband and anyone else who looks at me funny at any given moment.
Worst of all is that for a control freak, I’ve completely lost control – I’ve been letting bad language slip, letting my temper get the better of me (Jon Jon, go the F?@@?@” to sleep so I can get this off my chest!) which leads to bad skin, lost keys, leaving the car unlocked whenever I park, leaving the car door open and almost having it blown off by an oncoming car, daydreaming and staring into space when the preschool teachers are giving my child a dressing down , walking confidently into the grocery store with my skirt tucked into top of my stockings at the back with not a soul to rectify the situation and then getting back to the car park and wandering around in the abyss of the carpark combing each level for my poor, old, lost car. Then I finally get kids home by getting them to remember for me by rote learning the number of the carapace where we parked.
But it gets better, because then I get home, haul them into the house and try to run the bath water while cooking dinner. Then, I hear the sounds of torrential fooding and notice water seeping through the cracks in the staircase wall. Little did I know, I’d let the bath water overflow through the whole entire house. At the time it was pouring with rain outside so I innocently thought to myself “Ahh, must be a leak in the ceiling”. Nightmare. Classic example of too much multi-tasking gone bad.
Actually, there is a definite pattern in this brain deterioration. It is always triggered by a series of multi – tasks which, when put into overdrive in conjunction with exhaustion leads to a spiralling situation of chaos and lost marbles. Like a few weeks ago when I was cooking a huge fancy Friday night dinner and I as doing the washing, roasting food in the oven and cooking rice on the stove, taking out the rubbish and chatting to a friend. Next things I know, the fire alarm is beeping like a lost firetruck, the house is consumed with smoke (both kids upstairs aasleep for their lunchtime nap!) and then when I finally dash into the house, disconnect the fire alarms and run around like the a mad march hare opening every window and door I can think of I hear the front door slam behind me while I’m outside. I then start hyperventilating and sprint around the side to jump the side wall and thank Gd the backdoor was unlocked because I had forgotten to lock it earlier that day! Needless to say, there was absolutely no rice for dinner that night, and the house smelt like a stale nightclub for the better part of that week.
So, if anyone, anyone at all has seen my lost marbles, please, please let me know before I do anything else to render me commitable to a place where all the others have permanently lost their marbles!
The Real Housewife of Sydney
