Ahh elementary school, home to countless airborne illnesses and rampant contagions. It never takes long once the school year has begun for something to pop up. It seems as if there is always at least one kid with ooze leaking from them in one form or another and invariably your own child will at some point bring some of these home with them.
It’s just a part of parenting but why do some of those normal childhood contagions have to be so darn icky?
My least favorite thing to ever be brought home from school was by far lice. Nothing makes my skin crawl more than opening a backpack to find a warning that lice has been found. A few years back the girls school had a real problem with lice that I am really hoping never happens again.
I think that besides the creepy crawly feeling you get when the word lice is mentioned this is what bothers me the most about these pests; that it is so easy for the problem to continue. All it takes is one parent who doesn’t follow through on treatment to start the cycle of transmitting the little buggers around again.
Now lice are something of an extra annoyance because it is entirely preventable but most things passed around are not. It does seem the vast majority of childhood illnesses are contagious before symptoms appear so there really is no preemptive defense against them.
I really do believe it is impossible to keep a hundred or more children in the same building for 8 hours a day from spreading every single cold and flu germ to each and every connected household. It is simply something that everyone with school age children, particularly the elementary aged ones have to deal with.
I’m hoping that lice doesn’t crop up this year but without a doubt the first school related contagion has reached our home in the form of a rather reddened eye which of course can mean only one thing pink-eye.
Like every other year I'll do the only thing I can; deal with the collateral damage that comes with each school year and stock up on the Kleenex and Advil.
