You know you’re a mom when you start to sound like your own mom. You know you’re a mother of multiples when you start to sound like your own mom and you don’t care.
Yesterday, for example, I arrived for preschool pickup to find the hallways of the school smelling strongly of bleach and a haz-mat team running around in full spacesuits. A sign on their usual classroom door told us that the children were in another room. After I collected their bags and coats, I found the room and lined up with the other mothers waiting at the half-door to collect their children. When it was my turn, I asked about the change of locale.
“Well,” the teacher said, “Somebody had an accident in the old classroom, so we had to evacuate. Just so you know, it might be,” her voice lowered to a stage whisper, “contagious. We like to alert all the parents in these types of situations.”
An accident. Okaaaay. Toxic waste spill? Influx of malaria carrying mosquitoes? Swine flue? Asian bird flu? Whooping cough?
All around me, mothers with infants in strollers were coaxing their three year olds into their coats, periodically shrieking, “No! Don’t touch the baby! You’re contaminated!”
I looked at the teacher. “What kind of accident?”
“One of the kids…got…sick.” She moved her hands as she spoke, vaguely circling her stomach area and then lifting them skywards.
“So he vomited.”
“Yes. Like I said, there was an accident, so we evacuated the classroom immediately.”
I was perplexed. Vomiting kind of comes with the territory when you’re talking about preschoolers. “Did this child throw up on the other kids?”
“No. Just, you know,” she dropped into her stage whisper again, “all over the floor and stuff.”
“Well, were the kids stomping in the puddles or finger painting with the vomit?”
“Of course not!” She looked scandalized. “We evacuated immediately.”
Seriously. Evacuated? What was this, Chernobyl?
“Ok, great, sounds good,” I said, herding my kids off to the playground.
My mind was whirling, attempting to do math (a dubious prospect at best). Remnants of high school biology led me to conclude that if this kid was throwing up today, he was well and truly contagious yesterday, and that all our kids had been thoroughly exposed. It’s not like this was thrilling news, but it hardly seemed like the apocalypse. If we were gonna get sick, we were gonna get sick. There’s not much we could do about it after the fact.
We went out to the playground for our daily after-school play time, a non-official playgroup of sorts, and I took up my usual position with the other mommies, watching our kids slide, climb, throw sand, and generally get filthy.
Our preschool is usually a laid-back kind of place. Many of the mothers attended when they were children. There’s no crazy emphasis on academics; they like to let children learn through play. Listening to the mothers on the playground yesterday left me feeling like I was in the twilight zone.
“My God, I can’t wait to get them home and throw them in the tub.”
“Oh, I just hope she doesn’t touch the baby! I cannot deal with a sick baby.”
“I just want to scrub him down with Purell.”
“Who was it that threw up again? Why was he in school?”
Watching the twins climb the massive playset to the slides, shrieking, I put their bags down at my feet. “This is so weird. Remember when we were in elementary school? You know, when a kid threw up in school, they’d just move us all to the other side of the classroom until the janitor could get to the class, and then he’d sprinkle some powdered stuff on the mess, sweep it up, and then everything just kind of went on.”
Crickets.
Then, a chorus of, “Oh, yeah, I remember that!”
“Yes, that stuff that was like kitty litter!”
“It’s amazing any of us lived!”
And then the crowd dispersed, each to her own minivan. Where, I suspect, many children were scrubbed down with Purell or whisked home for de-contamination. I wish I could say that I whipped out my own Clorox wipes, but quite frankly, my dear readers, I didn’t give a damn.
Instead, I took the kids to the grocery store, and during our first stop in the produce section, I turned around to bag some grapes, and when I turned back, my daughter was chowing down on the ice in the apple cider display.
I’m so getting my Good Mommy card revoked.
LMAO! I love it! I cannot believe, well wait yes I can, that all of these moms were freaking out like that. I've been thrown up on by a total strangers child (I mean in my shoe all over my leg the whole shebang) and I didn't even freak out like that.
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Anxiety loves a crowd, you know? I'm usually pretty Type A, but I have an oddly relaxed attitude towards germs. Good for the immune system and preventing allergies and all that.
Germ transfer pretty much goes with the territory when you have more than one child, especially twins. I'm with you. Way too late to worry about infection control after the fact!
No kidding!! My mommy card was probably revoked a long time ago. Throw up happens, right? And as gross as it is, and as much as I don't want my kids to get sick, there's no way you can 100% prevent it from happening. Sheesh 😉
It's funny what kids can do to you. Last flu season I practically bathed in Purell and camped out for flu shots, now I'm all, “hmm, I guess I should get my flu shot soon.”
And, karma being the bitch that it is, I'm gonna move now before lightning, the flu, or a stomach bug strikes me dead.
throw up happens. HAHAH! my kid? used to only be able to puke ON ME. That was a fun time. Fun.
@MommaKiss My kids had horrible reflux (yes, both, at the SAME time)…think Poltergeist…and maybe that has something to do with it.
I'm so with you on that. Of course, I'm no stranger to vomit. I was sick for 4 months during my twin pregnancy, twice. I also enjoyed a fine moment last spring when my child vomited down my shirt on the way to the ER for an asthma attack. (She also peed on my leg.) Thinking I'd be home in 5 hours, I didn't bother to worry about it too much. FOUR DAYS LATER when they finally released my daughter from the hospital, I was delighted to go home and head straight for the shower. That's when I found the most disgusting chunk of vomit that had been incubating in my bra cup for the past 96 hours. Good times.
Normally I'm with you, but i don't do puke. I mean, I can't deal with it AT ALL. So I would do ANYTHING to keep my kids away from it. Of course, there's nothing you can do if some kid barfs in school. It happens. You just hope your kids' immune system kicks in. And let's face it – of course I don't want my kids to be sick, but really? I don't want ME to be sick! 😉
@Cheryl, I'm not saying I love puke, just that it's an inevitability. And the germophobe in me happens to be a pragmatist. Weird, I know, given my normal Type A-ness (see “irrational fears”).
@Tami, I cannot imagine that experience! Ewww!!!! But the one time I had to take my daughter to the ER for croup, she peed all over me, and I've gotta admit, I didn't think much about it, even though it was hours. Motherhood does crazy things to your head.
Angie, I love your down to earth attitude! So can relate! When my babysitter called to let me know her child had chicken pox, I figured my son (who was there 5 days/week) was already over-exposed so I decided not to miss work (only income earner) until he broke out! Must've been then I lost my “Good Mommy Card”! (This was pre-chicken pox vaccine. He's now a normal, healthy 21 y/o with no know emotional scars from this.)
They *evacuated* the classroom for puke? Jeez. I remember puke in school the same way you do. Everyone stand off to the side (mumbling about how gross the puke is…) and wait for the janitor.
I suspect I'd have made my son wash his hands when we got home, but really, you're right. If the kid had anything contagious, he was contagious well before he puked, so…yeah.
How much are we wussifying our kids nowadays anyway? Back in MY day…Hmph….I swear…I'm such a curmudgeon….
You are NOT losing you good mommy card. You are totally right! It's SO annoying how people, especially parents, are with germs.
I LOVE turning to moms giving my boogery kid dirty looks and saying: My kids been sick long enough that he's not contagious. IN FACT, kids are most contagious the day BEFORE they show symptoms. You know, viruses are GENIUSES. And now you are TOO!
But usually I'm nicer. But we still don't get a lot of play dates…
Let me get this straight. The other mommies at the park couldn't wait to get their kids home to decontaminate them because some kid puked in the classroom. None of the said puke touched any of their kids. Yet they're letting their children play on a public playground without them being in full body condoms? Do they not realize their kids are far more likely to get sick from the germs on that playground than from the puke their kids didn't come into contact with?
If you've lost your mommy card, I lost mine ages ago!
You're my kind of mom. I would have had the same reaction. Kids are germ carriers. You take reasonable precautions, of course, but unless there's any sort of immunity issue, drastic measures are not necessary.