The Icky School Years

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.  

Flu Day

The level of nausea that is accompanying my attempt at sitting upright tells me this is going to be a short post.  

A 24 hr flu bug has hit our house with a vengeance and knocked three of us off our feet.  My dear husband is the only one to escape so far; mind you he got a flu shot so maybe that will keep it from being a four out of four.

Without fail it began like so many other illnesses in the middle of the night. I was half asleep when the sound of A being sick woke me at 1:00am.  After changing sheets, pjs and spending a good twenty minutes with the mop I was able to get us both back to our beds.

Cue E less than an hour later. Sheets, pjs, rinse repeat. 

Out of all of it what was the hardest to handle was the fact that we had had red velvet cupcakes as a treat that evening.  Don’t think we will be having those again for a very, very long time.

I made it through to the morning called both girls schools and was set to deal with a long day when the vague nausea that had been following me through the night, which could easily have been attributed to my activities reared up and I officially joined the ranks of one of the sickly.

Ugh to make matters worse with the rain the other day I’d run to the garbage cans wearing my slippers. Yes I know not my brightest idea and as I should have expected I slipped and wrenched my back. The combination of flu and back is making me quite miserable today.

It’s only 8:00am and I need a nap.

Stuffed and Aching

If someone could just show up and do my work today that would be great, and my blog post while they’re at it.  I’m not sure if the weekend has caught up to me or if this stiffness and achiness which has developed the past few days has turned into a full blown cold. I’m going to guess a little bit of both.

It was a rather busy weekend including a pretty fair sized party my husband and I had on Saturday. Doing it as often as we have it’s actually become much easier, certainly more so than the first time I tried to host 20+ people in our home. I now seem to have it down to an art even if it is still rather tiring.

I was exhausted long before the party even began as my morning had kicked off with over an hour paddling in the Red River practicing for the up-coming dragon boat festival. I tried my best to ignore the pounding headache and half seized muscles that developed shortly after practice ended with the aid of several advil but by the time the last of our guests had left at 1:30 in the morning I was quite ready to see them off.

Both Friday evening and Sunday were nice full days as well and it has somewhat left me feeling like I’ve had my ass kicked today. Refusing to slow down when I get sick does tend to leave me in a state of utter exhaustion and completely wiped out when it hits full force but I enjoyed every last minute of fun along the way.

Well at least the insomnia that’s been plaguing my sleep the past week was absent when I finally collapsed into bed Saturday night, or should I say Sunday morning. See I knew there was a silver lining to getting so tired.