Germs
Friday, January 16th, 2015From Friday Mom – Erin:
Our first week at home with baby Charlotte has been an eventful one. So far this week, Rory’s daycare has had two weather-related two-hour delayed openings, meaning that I’ve had to take him in because his dad was already at work. I have been to the pediatrician once with each child, and Rory has stayed home twice from school with a mild fever and strong cough. Rory’s daddy has been sleeping on the couch most nights to avoid waking the baby up with his piercing cough. My mother, who has generously agreed to spend a few weeks with us to help out with the new baby, has been helping disinfect and run interference for germs.
We’ve been dividing and conquering to keep the kids as separate as possible in hopes of keeping Charlotte away from whatever delightful virus has stricken Rory and his father. So far, Rory has been reasonably cooperative in staying away from his little sister. We’ve had to tell him a little white lie– rather than explain that he is sick and can’t be close to her, we’ve told him that she is sick and that we don’t want him to catch her germs.
Having two kids born in January comes with a certain number of perils– namely: cold weather and lots of germs. When Rory was born, it was pretty easy to keep him from most infection vectors. We didn’t really allow anyone who wasn’t perfectly healthy into the house to visit, and we barely left the house for those first few months. Now that Rory is in daycare (and remaining there during the duration of my maternity leave), it is substantially harder to keep the germs from entering the house. Plus, with an antsy toddler, it is a virtual certainty that we’ll be heading out into public far more often with Charlotte than we did with her brother.
All of this begs the question– is it truly possible to protect our young daughter from her brother’s germs? Probably not. Instead, we’ll work on doing the best we can and hope that we can at least defer her first cold for a few more weeks. Fingers crossed. Tightly.