I have been fighting off being sick for a couple of days now. After a horrible night's sleep, losing my voice and a fever I am finally throwing in the towel. This means I don't have to go to work tomorrow, yay! I get to call in sick!
Wait...my job is being a mom. I don't get to skip a day. I don't get to call in sick. If Military Dad were here, I could at least get a nap or slip into my Nyquil induced coma. However, we still have over a month before we get him back.
Our nearest family member is 10 hours away. Yes, we have friends that can help. However with me being sick, it's possible that my kids have my cooties, and there is one thing you don't want to pass on to another family.
Cooties seem like an innocent word; cute almost. Cooties are actually bad, sadistic little things that mutate into the things that nightmares are made of. (Yes, I have an imagination.)
When I was younger, my dad and I would blame my mom for bringing all sorts of nasty germs home. She worked in the banking industry...you don't even want to know where your money has ever been, trust me!
My mom would come home sick with a simple cold, however it seemed that simple cooties in her body would mutate into deadly viruses. Her cold would last 2 days at most, the deadly virus she would pass on to my dad and me would leave us in agony for weeks!
Growing up, I imagined the insides of my mom were more like a Petri dish, just waiting for cooties to multiply into something horrible. (The TV series Fringe - that cold virus episode, yep, now you're getting close.) However after having kids of my own, I figured out that she was like a Petri dish, but only because of her job. (You thought I was going to say that she wasn't!)
Her job made her come in contact with all sorts of nasty stuff on a daily basis. The only time it was worse was when she worked for a bank, INSIDE a hospital. Fortunately I didn't live at home then and I think my dad traveled a lot, so major catastrophes were averted.
I recently figured out the secret to the germ/cootie mutation issue. It isn't necessarily the person, it's their environment. For example: in my house, I am a stay at home mom, so in my daily errands I come in contact with a lot of different people, my children, on the other hand, are in school.
Pay attention because here's the secret: the person that is exposed to the nastier germs will be the "carrier," ALWAYS. The other people's germs get a smack down and are told to conform or die...so they conform. Then the germs get along so well, they get married and have baby cooties.
The "carrier" is exposed to this stuff daily, so they create an immunity. The carrier then brings it home and sheds germs, left and right, to the poor victims that live with them. Little Dude is in preschool and Princess is in elementary, so I'm pretty sure they are equally both carriers due to their environments.
The issue is: due to their individual immunities, they get/give colds from/to each other. What they both give to me is comparable to a typhoon of germs. I have no immunity for this onslaught! My poor cooties just keel over and die, they don't even conform!
While Little Dude has a stuffy nose, I get a stuffy/runny nose, chills and a fever. While Princess has itchy eyes and sneezing, I get a cough, sore throat and head aches.
Once Military Dad comes home I will definitely get more help in order to fight off the invasion. Yes, he will bring his own germs into the mix, however no one can ever hope to battle school cooties and win. Therefore, Military Dad's primary duty when he gets home is to take a more active role in sharing the incoming germs. Then I can hope to survive the common cold instead of the plague.
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