Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Common Courtesy

It was drop-off time at preschool last week when I noticed Carter's new best friend had one heck of a cough. Ugh, I sighed to myself, here we go again. Although it's hard to confine a three-year-old to the house, where his only choices are to watch mom do the laundry or watch his little brother drool all over himself, and it's even harder for me to contend with him confined to the house without anything to climb or ride or jump on besides various parts of my body, it's just something I do without question when he's sick. Why make every other mother within commuting distance as miserable as I am? I don't really need to make enemies when I still haven't made too many friends here yet.

But why does it seem that no one else feels that way? Why do other moms have to send their kids out into the world feverish and snotty-nosed? And why do those kids have to be my kids' favorite playmates?

So now I've got one kid with an ear infection and green snot trailing down his face, another kid with a fever and bronchitis, and a ticking time bomb in my own white-cell depleted body. Although I've just about drained my personal Airborne stash, I know it's just seconds before I come down with a combined version of the nasty viruses my kids are harboring.

But I'm doing the good thing. I'm sacrificing myself, my health, my sanity, for the good of all kidkind. I'm keeping my boys home and safe and warm to recuperate and return to good health.

I just wish everyone else would do the same. Who knows, without playgrounds and preschools, maybe we'd finally win the battle against the common cold.

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