My So Called Perfect Life

Really, what more could I ask for this week?

Monday’s plan was to have the Tootsie’s JoySchool over for a fun filled day of the letter M, crafting maracas and making music. But oh the joys of a three year old. She didn’t want to tidy up her room, so she cried. She didn’t like the color of her cereal bowl, so she cried. She didn’t like the way I scooted her chair in to the kitchen table so she fell on the floor, kicked, screamed and threw a spoon that bonked Bubba in the head.

There is a no crying downstairs rule at our house unless you are hurt, bleeding or dying. I scooped her up, took her to her bed and told her calmly that when she was ready to wake up happy, she was welcome to come back downstairs. This is a daily occurance at our house. Tootsie is a bit emotional.

I talked with Roosters carpool and told her I’d drive the girls to school and as I’m putting down the phone, I hear Tootsie coming down the stairs. I tell her we need to get in the car right now to take Rooster to school. I ask her if she’s decided to have a happy day and she covers her mouth and starts throwing up. I run her over to the kitchen sink. It’s 9:15 and she hasn’t gone potty, until now, all over my skirt and shoes. I have never seen so much pee in my entire life. The poor girl has lost all control.

I yell to Rooster to get the phone and call our carpooling neighbor to come pick her up before she’s late for school. She gets the phone, she dials, she runs right over to the rim of the pee to hand it to me. “Aaaaack!!! Stoppppp! WATCH OUT FOR THE PEE!,” I yell. “JUST TELL HER TOOTSIE IS PUKING!”

Rooster runs up and gets me a bath towel to lay over the lake of pee and I start peeling layers of wet clothing off Tootsie, set her down on the bath towel and started peeling off my own soaked clothes. My feet are literally splashing in pee so I lift each leg up into the kitchen sink to wash them off so I can walk through the rest of the house and my FRONT DOOR OPENS! I’ve got a leg propped on the counter soaping up my foot in the kitchen sink with just my undies on my bottom half. I jump, re-contaminate my feet in the process, and peek around the wall. It’s the neighbor coming to get Rooster for school and I can’t tell you how thankful I am that my kitchen sink is not visible from the front door!!

The rest of the day was a bit weepy, the babies wouldn’t nap, but at least there wasn’t any more throw up. We had to cancel Joy School until next week and I guess I failed to mention it to Tootsie who sat with her blankie on the couch most the day. At 4:15 she asked my why it was taking so long for her school friends to come over. That totally made my heart hurt!

Just wait, the excitement gets better. Saturday Rooster, who will probably never ever learn how to ride her bike, had a wee little crash that resulted in a few wee little owies on her nose and chin. Teeny tiny scratches, not much harm, I don’t think she even realized they were scratched up.

Sunday, the scratches are a little red.

Monday, barfing fiasco day, the scratches are red and scabby and I send her to school. Monday night she tells me her nose hurts and she has a scratch on the inside of her thigh that hurts. I check it out and it’s a huge scabby sore that looks tender so we put a little cream on it with a bandaid and send her to bed.

Tuesday, the scratches are officially sores and look terrible. Her nose is all scabbed over and her chin scab looks double the size. Her leg doesn’t look great either, but I put cream on them and send her off to school where all the kids make fun of her. She comes home nearly in tears and I tell her to tell those kids to stop making fun of her.

Wednesday, her face looks awful. I have to clean up her snotty nose and the scabbies are bleeding. She’s crying. She says her leg hurts so we get her a bandaid so her clothes don’t rub on it. She doesn’t have a fever. She feels fine, she just looks terrible and so I send her to school reminding her to be brave not feel bad if the kids say mean things.

I drop her off feeling like crap because I know some mean kid is going to say something to hurt my baby’s feelings. I call my husband to tell him how awful I feel for her and he tells me I should take her to the doctor if I feel so bad about it. The second I get home I call the doctors office and they don’t have an appointment until the next morning. The do suggest I talk to the advice nurse to ask if there’s anything I might put on the scabbies until then.

I explain the situation to the advice nurse and she tells me to get in my car and get her out of school! She’s probably got Impetigo and it’s highly contagious and she’ll get me an emergency appointment in an hour to see the doctor. Oh great.

I call the school, load up all the kids and run back over to the school. She’s been there 25 minutes and she’s absolutely perplexed as to why she needs to leave. I run into the classroom and the teacher tells me she thinks she probably has Impetigo. HELLO! Why didn’t you call me? Or send her to the school nurse? I thought they were just bike accident scabbies!

Over at the doctors office everyone is wearing gloves. We’ve obviously got a problem here. The doctor walks in and says exclaims YELLS, WHOA, SHE’S GOT IMPETIGO.

Great. Just great. It’s a highly infectious bacteria that gets into your cuts and spreads scabbies all over your body. Eventually, the scabs turn yellow, red and ooze puss and the only way to get rid of it is with strong antibiotics. She could have picked it up at school, at the park, on the playground, at the library. It basically looks like you have flesh eating disease.

I have to sanitize her sheets, pillow and pajamas every night for a week. She cannot share bath water with anyone, or any towels. She dries off and it should go right into the washing machine. No hand towels or wash cloths either, just a paper towel and she must stay out of school for the rest of the week.

Nice. I’ve just sent her to school all week to contaminate all the kids there. She’s also taken a bath with every kid in this house and shared a towel or two during the course of the week. She’s wiped her hands on the bathroom hand towel and slept in Tootsie’s bed.

If impetigo spreads around this house like pink eye usually does I’m going to die. In the meantime we’re giving our kids permission to bathe in the hand sanitizer and putting the prescription antibiotic cream on every cut on their bodies.

This morning, Thursday, they’ve all woken up with a cough. Seriously. Do they still sell Calgon?