November 19, 2006
Cough, Cough....Sniff!
I hate this time of year for one reason: colds from hell.
It looked like Daughter was getting over the latest round until yesterday, when the cold she was recovering from morphed into something really nasty during a two hour nap.
I think I have reason to worry about this, since it could develop into something worse, and she has to go back in two weeks for her second flu shot. And let's not forget her ears! I can't deal with back-to-back ear infections again; she still has a tube in one of her ears.
So it doesn't look like we're going to church today...again. I don't want to have her around all those other kids, coughing and hacking. I hate that when other kids do it, so it's the Golden Rule, you know?
It's times like this that make me quite an isolationist. I don't want my kids to go anywhere, touch anything, be exposed to anything that might make them sicker than they already are.
Damn the public school system!
Logic tends to take over at times like this, and with a holiday gathering looming just days away, I'm wondering if we should take the younglings into a stew of germs. My kids are going to be around their cousins, and inevitably someone else is hacking and snotting all over the place. And there's that Golden Rule thing; I don't want any of the in-laws bitching about how my kids got their kids sick.
Oh sure, people will be pissed if we don't go, but isn't the health of my children and little more important?
(As I type this, Son is wiping Daughter's nose. Brotherly love is not dead.)
Input is most welcome, as I know if I try to broach the subject of not going up to visit on Thanksgiving, I'll be shot down.
I oughta buy stock in Kleenex.
Show Comments »
Hey there, Groovyvic,
You have my deepest sympathies. Yes, this is the time of year when kids trade germs like baseball cards. "I'll give you a nasty head-cold and strep throat if you'll give me laryngitis." (I'm sure I misspelled that but I'm still on my first cup of Java).
You're too right. Either way, there will be Hell to pay. My best suggestion is to accept that in some cases (and I'm pretty sure this is one of them), deception is your best ploy. Well, not really deception, but just emphasizing a particlar truth completely out of proportion to reality.
What's he going on about, you ask?
Step one:
Get your hands on an old-fashioned portable cassette recorder. (radio shack, $35.00 or a bit less)
Step two:
Record sounds of offspring sniffling, sneezing, coughing and hacking. (blank cassette at walgreens, $1.98)
Step three:
Put clothspin on your nose to close nostrils.
Step four:
Make phone calls to the in-laws most likely to cause trouble if you don't attend on Thanksgiving, while playing the recording of children's coughing and whining in the background throughout the entire conversation.
It would be ideal if you could get Husband to interrupt in the background asking for the at the household has run out of Kleenex.
If you work it right, the people on the other end of the line will be washing their hands and sprying lysol on their phone as soon as the conversation ends (and expressing gratitude the the deity of their preference that you won't be coming over the river and through the snow).
Getting out of painful social obligations and protecting your offspring from a fresh crop of germs...pricless!
For everything else, there's Mastercard.
Good luck!
Posted by: John at November 19, 2006 12:12 PMGroovyvic, my kids have been sick for a month now. The Branch just can't get better. He's on prednisone, albuterol and pulmicort right now, which has turned him into a monster ('roid rages). He's so difficult to deal with. And the Blossom is so congested and coughing now. I am nearly at my wit's end. I was sick for three weeks before the doc was finally able to cure me. It just goes around and around and never ends.
Posted by: junebee at November 19, 2006 04:31 PMI don't like to daily medicate my kids, but I put my kids on singulair. It seems to keep the sniffles from becoming anything more severe. They took it last year, and it seemed to really help.
Posted by: Kim at November 20, 2006 10:48 AM