Germ Warfare

With all the stuff flying around the media recently regarding swine flu and various other germy type illnesses it got me thinking about germ warfare.
(No, not the type where some freak drops the small pox on Minnesota, and suddenly there is a pandemic...)
I mean, my own personal war against germs.
Sometimes people get carried away.
My mom is a certified germaphobe...and I say this lovingly. She is the type now, that won't let me---her own daughter---take a bite of something she is eating without first cutting whatever it is away from what she is eating....and good Lord, I would never think of using her fork! There is a guttural sound of disgust that she emits when my kids drop something on her super clean floor, and then they eat it anyway. Her mantra is 'did you wash your hands?' (which I understand...because people in general just do not.)Luckily my 5 year old is a big hand washer...another excuse for her to say,'I can do it MYSELF'...my older kids, 11 and 14, still have to be reminded---and I still have to say,'if I smell your hands right now, will they smell like soap?' Of course this does backfire at times as they shove their hands in my face to prove a point!
I guess I never really thought much about it before I had kids.
The first baby drops her pacifier, and that one cannot be used again until it has been boiled in scalding water, air dried and sealed with some hermetic device. The second child drops a pacifier and you may rub it on your jeans, pick off some dog hairs, and then it's good to go. The third child drops a pacifier, and you might blow on it...and back in it goes.
Being in public with a new baby is always fun.
Why do people who you do not know, and do not ask if they can, want to touch newborns faces and hands...hello? New human here, building immune system---do NOT touch the baby...please. People! Do NOT touch the baby! (as you smile sweetly through gnashing teeth.)A friend of mine even had a woman---she did not know---stick her FINGER in the baby's mouth to see his teeth---now that would have deserved a roundhouse kick to that woman's head from me!
I guess my germaphobia does come out in a public restroom though.
I travel with my kids a lot...so, there are 'pitstops' on the road. I can tell you all the clean restrooms along my routes.Even still, I use my elbow to turn on/off the water, and I am teaching the girls the craft of 'hovering' and flushing with your foot.(I can also open doors with my foot---years of dance training.)My mantra with little people in luscious places like that is 'DON'T touch ANYTHING!' which draws snickers from stalls nearby...and yes, I have used the facilities holding a crawling age baby and hovering...what mom has not? Port-a-johns at public events are a lot of fun with children as well. Not only are they 'cozy', and smell delightful, but my kids are always afraid they will fall in to 'that hole'...(actually, so am I. Can you imagine?)For occasions like these it is best to just fumigate them with Lysol spray and dunk them in antibacterial gel...it is alcohol based, so, the kids do dry pretty quickly.
I am teaching my kids to cough in to their elbows...Dracula style...and to sneeze the same way. I get squirrelly when I see a kid at preschool with green snails hanging outta their nose. I can spot a fevery kid a mile away---and do not think that I don't know that that 'allergy' is really pink eye!
Preschool is a playground for the germs, however I can't send my child to school in a little hazmat suit. I mean really, it would severely impede her movement on the playground...and all the kids would want to try on the respirator for sure.Kids lick, bite, chew on everything, and each other. One must accept this and pray that no kid came to school with a case of flu.
After having food poisoning on more than one occasion, I am wary of food that I personally have not prepared or have seen being prepared. I have been a waitress...I know what goes on in the kitchen...and may I remind everyone, it is in your best interest to treat your wait staff kindly.
'Pot luck' dinners are hard for me now. If I know everyone who prepared the food, then I can call them the next day and see if they were hurling all night as well from 'Aunt Ginny's famous chicken salad'...and no, I do not buy stuff at bake sales outside of grocery stores.Some people seem to have cast iron stomachs and are not effected by anything. I can look at mayonnaise based potato salad sitting in the sun, and get ill...a trait I hope my kids do not get from me.
So far, so good this season...we have not started the cycle of illness. One kid gets sick, then after passing it on to the second, feels better while child three starts getting symptoms...then child one gets well, child two is really sick, and child three is going down hill. Then child one gets sick again, child two is better...you get my point. ('Who's on First'.)
I am just keeping my freshly washed fingers crossed that we survive another season, illness free...and that my germ warfare does not send me over the edge...and I won't let you use my fork...!!!