My little walking Petri dish...
It's an interesting way of describing a child, but that's how my friend at work described Jemma when I told her about our horror week we had just been through.
Toddlers' tendency to run around, touching and mouthing anything they can get their little digits on, gives them a bad reputation as being dirty little carriers of disease... Growing warm bacterial cultures on their bodies, ready to be unleashed on any unsuspecting sucker. Ha ha, it sounds like a B grade horror film.
Well...I guess we've been pretty lucky, to get to 16 months without too many fevers, colds and lurgies.
But last week our unsuspecting walking Petri dish contracted something from another alleged walking Petri dish... "Hand foot and mouth disease". She had a fever for 2 days followed by spots on her hands, feet and mouth causing pain and preventing her from eating. Fun fun fun!
As a parent, you never want your child to be sick. It sucks!
As a human, the first impulse is to play the blame game. " Where did it come from?" Oh it must have been that dirty, public toilet change table or the toys at playgroup or the playground at the park... but it's all to no avail, you will never know where these strange diseases came from.
The next inclination is to compulsively clean and wipe down every object and toy she may have handled and then the same for your child to make sure that this never ever happens again. "If I just make sure she washes her hands alllll the time... she won't get sick!" Brilliant idea! NOT! You know I try to keep it real, it's basically part of my personality, and I really don't think that I could be that meticulous. So out the window that idea goes.
And then you just come to the realisation that toddlers will get illnesses... They all do...and yes it's hard but you just have to deal with it when it happens the best way you can.
Winston Churchill once said "if you're going through hell, keep going!". Smart Man. You will get through it... And then you'll have an experience to write a blog post about... I guess. Keep it real :)
