Sick Kids

Emily has been persistently disgusting since early this year. A smokers cough, a spicket of a nose that leaks slimy slug-like snot, and weepy eyes. Being almost two, and surrounded by other disgusting tiny creatures such as herself at the sitter's, I have just been chalking it up to the regular germs. Along with the fact that she can still travel at light speed with all this going on. There were 2 glorious weeks in April where she was pristine, not a booger in sight. But that didn't last long. We began to think it was allergies because of the mostly colorless leakage and persistence, and the fact that none of us, including her sister seemed to be catching what she had.

So then the whole second guessing takes place. Do I take her to the doctor? Keep her home from the sitter? Keep an eye on it? Force feed her vegetables and vitamins? Get her out in fresh air? Keep her bundled up laying low on the couch watching Super Why?

But then a note from the sitter, who, poor thing, is 9 months pregnant. Could we make sure the girls were in good health before we brought them? She was sick with what Emy had, and she didn't want any more illness. She also stated that it isn't allergies because all the snot was green, and that 13 people became sick later.

Defensive Mommy goes to, "So what you're saying is that I'm a bad parent for failing to recognise this as sickness, not taking care of my kid, and infecting everyone else?" And of course I look at all the other lovely sweet germ balls who have recently thrown up and had fevers, and wonder how many of them were asked to stay home?

More rational mommy knows that it sucks to be that pregnant and miserably sick, I love the job this woman does, that my two demons are a handful anyway, and that getting to the bottom of this via doctors visits probably isn't a bad idea anyway.

So Jeremy took her to the doctor. Strangest thing, she had a small fever! She was all high spirits, piss and vinegar today! It appears to be all sinus but not severe, and could be aggravated by allergies. She's going to an allergist next week. Poor Emy!

I still have not decided how to deal with these hurt feelings when I speak to the sitter. I want to say "but, but, but, how did she infect you and everyone else and not her own family, the snot IS clear, REALLY, and what about all the other kids?!" But this will not be productive. I just hope my children are not ostracized because "they spread infections". I get backed up if I hear a kid is sick there, but then I shrug and say "bring it on", the more infections now, the more the antibodies later! My gut is saying this is something else, and regardless of how I, or other people feel, I have learned to trust it above everything else.