Let’s all take a deep breath…

Ahhhh…

 

Now, didn’t that feel good?

This is what I would like to say to some of the mom’s I have encountered the last few days.  Let’s all take a deep breath, and chillax.  Maybe we all need a good laugh too?

Over the last week the flu and H1N1 virus have totally invaded the area.  I got an email today saying my daughter’s school is closed tomorrow.  They have had two confirmed cases of H1N1 so far, and being that the school is so small, I’m sure a lot of kids were exposed.  The email also said the Health Department recommends we do not “get together” with any other children outside of school.  What?  Even if my kids are healthy?  Yup.  Great.  It didn’t give a time frame for this though.  How about a little more detail next time?

I debated whether I should tell the girl’s daycare.  I mean if kids get sick there, it’s not like it’s going to be traced back to us, right?  My kids aren’t even sick (yet).  Am I bad person if I don’t tell?  My main reason for not wanting to say anything is because I didn’t want to create drama.  On Monday when we were at gymnastics I heard some mom’s saying they were even keeping their children who weren’t sick home!  Seriously?  People are seriously freaking out around here. 

It doesn’t help that they keep flashing all over the news that kids are dying from H1N1.  I feel horrible for the children who have died, and I certainly don’t wish that on myself or anyone I know, but you can’t keep your kids in a bubble.  In our case, by the time we found out children at the school had it, my kids had already been around them.  There is Nothing. I. can. do. about. it.  If they get sick, we’ll deal with it.  But, in the meantime I’m not going to give myself even more grey hair stressing over it and checking their temperature every 5 minutes.

However, I admit I would be lying if I said I didn’t run to Meijer this afternoon to buy Listerine for everyone. 

I was so embarrassed that I was giving into the hype, I considered hiding the Listerine under my coat.  Luckily, I quickly realized this could be confused with shop lifting, and decided against it.  By the way, the Listerine is because I read somewhere gargling with it twice a day can prevent the virus from proliferating in your throat/nasal cavity.  Yes, I told you, I gave into the hype.  Don’t worry though, I didn’t steal any surgical masks from work!

Back to the daycare.  I decided to tell the director this afternoon when I picked the girls up.  She said “Ok, well, we’ve been sanitizing everything every night and luckily we haven’t had any sick kids yet.”  Ok, that’s great.  But, then I saw her go and tell Lainey’s teacher and the teacher looked at me like I’d just exposed everyone to an STD.  Ugh.