mother would say that I wore dresses and tights
and didn't really like to play in or touch the dirt. I was what you would call a girly-girl. As I got older, I did remain clean, just not very neat. As a teen, I grew up in a Victorian home full of beautiful things, but you couldn't see anything under the heap of clothes, shoes, stuffed animals, and bedding in my room. When I ventured out on my own as an adult, I became a clean and neat freak. My mom told me that she was worried when I was a teen that I would never outgrow that messy phase. She's proud at how I turned it around. To this day, I remain a little bit of a clean/neat freak. With all my boys, it's hard to entertain my obsessive tendencies towards having everything being tour-ready in my home. I also am unable to control the level at which my children subject themselves to our world and all its germs, bacteria, and viruses. Stallion will often jest with me that I can't keep my boys in a bubble, so I need to let it go. I have, but can still get shocked, like when my kids put candy that was on the floor in their mouths. Or the time one of them took a piece of ABC gum from who-knows-where and stuck it in their pie-hole. At these times, I feel like having them swish with bleach but as a nurse, am aware of the problems that this would cause. I will then settle for a good mouth brushing, then observing them for symptoms of what just HAD to be carried on that yummy find.
On our recent trip to Gatlinburg, Noah (that's him above), tested my germphobia. We were walking down the main street when I all of a sudden heard my husband cry out, "No Noah Don't!" From then on, everything was in slow motion. I turned and said "WHAAAAAT HAAAAPPEEENED?" Stallion said,"You dooooon't waaaaan't to knoooooow." I then turned to Noah and my mouth dropped. In his mouth was a whole new set of those goofy plastic teeth that kids wear on Halloween. He was happy as a lark. I was grossed out and thinking how long it would be before I could safely kiss him again. I also thought that he would need careful observation to make sure his face or body didn't respond to some crazy microbe. Well, he lived and didn't even get sick. Thank goodness for small favors. The lesson is: kids and germs go together and sometimes we just need to let it go a little. I kissed him that same day.
This is just too funny. I have a similar story....a month or so ago we all attended a high school symphony performance that a friend of ours was directing. It was a formal affair at a hotel. Of course, I ended up in the lobby with my three-year-old as the room was extremely hot. The older two were extremely thirsty and I pointed them in the direction of a complimentary water table at the back of the perfomance room. Only later did I realize they had taken USED water glasses to pour their water into instead of the glasses that were neatly stacked upside down. Ugh! I can now safely say that neither one came down with any strange viruses, but I was squirming at the thought of what they had done the rest of the evening. :)
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