Manic Motherhood: Got Germs?

Manic Motherhood

I was once a healthy adult. Oh, sure, once in a great while I'd get a cold or the flu. But back in the day, it was rare for me to be under the weather. So rare, in fact, that I usually had to feign illness just to use up my sick days.

And then I became a parent.

From then on, all bets were off. I've been sick more in the last 13 years than I have in my entire life. I've used up more sick days than employers ever consider giving to employees. In fact, I may have broken a record by using a lifetime's worth of sick days in just two months.

And it's because I live with Junior, the human Petri dish. Germs jump into his body and grow, and then they attack me.

Like most kids, Junior started spreading diseases when he was young. He went to daycare with all the other little Petri dishes. And, let me tell you, those kids were very good at sharing. If one child in daycare got the stomach flu, she shared it with all the kids-and their families, of course.

Because that's how disease is spread. Through children.

So I've compiled this handy guide to three common childhood illnesses-the big three, you might call them. Now, I don't know how to cure them. Heck, I don't even know how to avoid them. What I do know is that these three diseases will prevent parents all over the world from getting a good night's sleep.

The Common Cold

They call it the cold common for a reason-it's because in any classroom, on any given day, 23% of the children will have a cold. And of that 23%, only one child will use a tissue. The rest will use their hands. Or their shirts. Or their best friend's shirt.

There is no cure or avoidance technique for the common cold. When one child gets a cold, it will spread to all the children in the class and, possibly, the classroom hamster. And once your child brings home the cold, your entire family is toast.

Oh sure, you can try your best to resist-but it's pretty futile. Heck, you can wash your hands until they're raw. You can wear surgical masks wherever you go. And you can take so much Echinacea that you become addicted and start to troll garden centers looking to get a fix from purple coneflower-but you will never, ever avoid the common cold. It's just impossible. It's stronger than all of us.

Ear Infections

Ear infections stink. In fact, the only good thing about ear infections is that they aren't contagious. But if your child starts suddenly producing so much earwax that he could start his own surf wax company, or if your kid is tugging at his ear so much he stretches out the lower lobe-he has an ear infection. And if you want to sleep at all that night, you'd better go to a doctor and beg for the pain drops. For your child, of course.

The Stomach Flu.

It's a sad fact of life that the flu bug is most active at night. During the day, your child will be tired and a bit under the weather, but still able to watch an entire "SpongeBob Square Pants" marathon and eat all the chips in the house.

Of course that night, when the stomach bug leaps to life, your child will spend from 1:32 AM until dawn with their head in the toilet. If your child is a toddler, expect to get vomited upon at least once during your fun-filled nocturnal activities.

So there you have them, my big three childhood illness. Oh sure, there are more. There's mumps, measles, chicken pox-heck, there are diseases out there that even my spell check can't spell. But for me, these are the three that Junior brings home each and every year.

The worst part is, even if you don't have your very own little Petri dish, you aren't immune to the big three. After all, who knows what germs have made the leap from Petri dish host to grocery cart handle?


-------------------------------------
About Manic Motherhood: Laurie Sontag is the author of the popular humor blog, Manic Motherhood and has been a humor columnist for California newspapers since 2001. If you can't find her at Manic Motherhood, check out her work for Examiner.com. If all else fails, check under the sofa. She's not there, but she likes it when somebody else tries to find the lost socks and freak out the dust bunnies.