October 16, 2006

Cess pools

I think I have figured out a way to keep health care costs down in this country. It’s simple really and involves two steps:

All children will be schooled at home through home-schooling or cyber-schooling, thus avoiding the school buildings (cess pool #1) which are apparently teeming with germs.
Children will no longer go to doctor’s offices for well visits. Doctors will make house calls for well visits, thus helping children avoid cess pool #2.

I have learned in the last month and a half that Kindergarten is a cess pool of germs. I have never had so many colds/viruses in my life. Not even when I was a teacher, did I get sick this often. You see high school kids, for the most part, know how to blow their noses and keep their germs to themselves. I don’t think Kindergartener’s have learned this crucial skill yet. We’re currently running on a cycle something like this:

Day 1: Big I comes home and complains of slight sore throat and/or runny nose.
Day 2: Lil C starts sneezing.
Day 3: Mama starts sneezing and glands swell up big enough to make me look like a linebacker.
Day 4: Big I, Lil C, and me all break out in full fledged runny nose/achy body/sore throat hell.
Days 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 are all like Day 4
Day 11: We all start to feel better. I realize we’re not going through a box of tissues every half hour.
Day 12: Feeling great!
Days 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 are all good.
Day 18: See Day 1

I swear this is how it has been since Big I started school. Last week we added another germ cess pool to our daily routine with a well visit for Lil C. Every time the child gets a vaccine, she gets sick. She starts out fussy, feverish, and hating sleep. Now she has a full fledged cold, complete with "Mama, Mama, Mama" crying non-stop, except for the few precious hours when she sleeps, breathing through her mouth. And we don’t even get her all of the recommended vaccines.

During our visit to cess pool #2, the doctor said Lil C is doing very well and is ahead developmentally. Duh, she is the child of a valedictorian and a perfectionist after all. She is 31 1/4 inches tall (97th percentile). This marks the first time since birth that she is actually on the charts for her height. She weighs 20 lbs. 14 oz. (50th percentile), and her head is still 90th percentile.

In other news, Mr. BBM and I went out for our eight year anniversary (eight years of marriage-twelve years together)this weekend to a restaurant that was anything but a cess pool. We enjoyed crab stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer. Mr. BBM had kobe steak and I had sauteed crab cakes with green olive tartar sauce. It was delicious. I also had two glasses of the house Pinot Grigio which made walking in heels a bit of a challenge afterwards, but it was worth it anyway (Nine months of pregnancy plus 12 months of nursing makes for a dismal tolerance to any and all alcohol). We wrapped up dinner with a slice of pecan pie for Mr. BBM and a vanilla creme brulee for me, accompanied by an Ethiopian coffee in a french press that was so divine that neither of us even needed sugar.

It was wonderful to have dinner alone, without anyone requesting more chocolate milk for the 14th time or tossing a cup over the side of the high chair yet again. We talked about fantasy football, home improvements, our jobs, and funny things from our past. It was a great night out. I’m just glad that the full-fledged cold held off until Sunday so that we could enjoy our night out.

Back to the germs. I’m sure someone needs to blow her nose. . . again.

My latest post "Fantasy Football for Dummies" is up at Save the Soldiers, and is all about how my fantasy football season is going so far. Right now, the person who posts my entries made a boo-boo and the post says that it was written by Andrew something or other. It’s mine. It will be fixed. "Andrew" is probably not real happy that the first line says something about "my husband." If you like fantasy football or just football in general, you’ll especially like this weeks post. Actually, you’ll like it even more if you’re a Chicago Bears fan. Enjoy!