Centers for Disease Control

That’s what we’re calling our house at the moment. I reported on how Zoë came down with her first fever since starting daycare. It was only the beginning.

She has been snuffly since day one. To the center’s credit, she was teething at the time she started, so that particular runny nose had nothing to do with them. Nevertheless, the snot was relentless and she started to have a slight cough. Nothing serious, and always productive. Friends with more experience with daycare shared that it was all to be expected – all those germs in one place, her immune system was receiving a major hit on a daily basis. In fact, it was a wonder she wasn’t sicker! And she certainly didn’t act at all under the weather. I’m starting to realize that it takes a Mack truck to slow her down.

If only Zoë was the only one suffering. Shortly after Zoë came down with her fever, BJ got sick. Really sick – fever, chills – and he was home from work for 2 days. He tried to blame the vessel of disease (our child), but then admitted something was going around his workplace. Then I got a cold.

And then the vomiting started. Zoë woke up one Friday morning two weeks ago, seemingly fine. Sure, I’d heard her up coughing during the night, but thought nothing of it. I took her to school. She was not there two hours when her teachers are calling me to report she’s puking. “Did she have orange juice for breakfast? Because it’s all orange.” No, she hadn’t. It was that lovely post-nasal-drip-mucousy stuff. Hooray! She was sick. And this time I mean sick. I mean, just look at her symptoms: she was cuddly; she did not want to eat; she did not want to run; she was quiet.

By Saturday morning, she was acting much more like her normal self . . . although, she still wasn’t all that interested in food. But by Sunday morning – 5:00 in the morning, to be precise – her mother felt like a parasitic alien had taken up residence in her digestive tract. Did I mention I was in Milwaukee at the time? Without my own car? Looked like Zoë’s little bug had traveled to and with me. By the time I got back home Sunday afternoon, I was spiking a major fever. Note: I could not recall the last time I’d had a fever.

Despite BJ’s prodding, I took Monday off. His reasoning was that once I got up and moving, I’d be fine. Oooh, just you wait, mister! I did feel a bit better by the end of the day (still not interested in food – a pattern?). And, hey – thank goodness we pay for daycare so I could sleep!

It wasn’t over, though. BJ rushed in the door from work and ducked immediately into the bathroom. Z and I got well enough just in time to take care of Daddy, again! Now it was his turn to play host to the parasitic alien and all the baggage that came with it. (Come to find out that it was some sort of bug raging through Zoë’s school like wildfire.)

A few days later, we were all in good health. Zoë’s runny nose was even subsiding. I figured the full day of purging she did emptied everything out. Until I noticed Monday morning that she had a little goop in the corner of her right eye. Hmm, that’s a little odd, I think. By the time I picked her up from school, both of her eyes are completely slimed and sticky, not to mention red and puffy. Pink eye. My daughter now has pink eye. Conjuncti-freaking-vitis. This time I went to the doctor.

Not to make a ridiculously long post even longer, but . . . why do you often end up feeling like a slight doofus when you take your kid to the doctor? Had I brought her in two weeks ago with a clear, albeit persistent, runny nose and no fever, I would have been wasting his time. But bring her in with an apparent infection, after a month of a clear, runny nose, and I may have been neglecting a sinus problem? Whatever. At least I was vindicated on the conjunctivitis.

So, Momma and Dada are well, Z is downing the antibiotics (another first! Do I put this in the baby book?), and her eyes are much better. All this and it’s not even flu season.

Anyone know a good cleaning service?

Who, exactly, has left the children behind?

OK, here’s my very, very short rant about just one delightful feature of federal education legislation.

From our local paper: “He said 58 percent of the [school district’s] new budget’s revenues will come from local property taxes; 24 percent from general state aid; 7.6 percent from local revenue such as fees; 1 percent federal aid; and less than one fourth of a percent from other sources.”

In the school district in which I live, we have really quite good schools. We’re fortunate. We have a great tax base . . . and pay a pretty penny in property taxes. But, here’s the thing: you want to know why schools are “failing”? It’s not because educators are leaving children behind (as the title of that infamous act would have the public believe). Seriously, I’m curious how we can provide research-based, quality curriculum, evidence-supported supplementary aids and services, and pull all our children above the 50th percentile (figure out that math) when the feds provide only 1% of a district’s monies.

Don’t you just love mandates? By the way – how much are we spending on Iraq?

(See – I went and said that and now I have to write a qualifier. Do I think we should pull funding from our troops, put more of our dedicated men and women in danger, leave them high and dry? No, of course not. But do I question the wisdom of involving ourselves in this conflict, spending that kind of tax-payer money in the first place, when our own children can’t read and write at a level competitive with the rest of the world? Certainly.)

They're Just Creepy

So an ice cream man allegedly exposes himself to a kiddo and his dad, and the community figures, “Hell – let’s just ban ‘em all!” Reasonable enough, right?

OK – now in this day and age we all know that everything and everyone under the sun (including the sun) is out there to prey upon our children. And we all reminisce about our carefree youth spent tumbling down metal, rusty slides and chasing after men driving nondescript white vans with change in our pockets. Yes, this particular community may be overreacting. And normally I would simply scoff at their silliness. But . . .

Have you seen our ice cream man?

All summer long I’ve been rather disturbed by the vendor who drives through our neighborhood. For one, his van looks like it was at one time abandoned on some forgotten grassy slope edging the Fox River. Someone came upon it, salvaged it (barely) and slapped some stickers advertising tasty frozen treats on it. As a grown up, the van alone screams, “You will never see your child again!”

Add to the exterior appearance the little tune piped through those tinny speakers slapped on top. It is your typical nursery-rhyme ditty with obnoxious – and incessant – barking dog and quacking duck sounds mixed in. But each time the tune ends, in the pause before it loops again, there is a pleasant woman’s voice calling, “Hello!” By the way, it is definitely not a woman driving the van.

To me there just seems something really predatory about that. Even if that predation is simply economic. “Come on out children, it’s OK. I’m a nice, friendly woman just like your mom. Would you like some ice cream?” It’s like the Pied Piper meets Red Riding Hood’s wolf.

In the inimitable words of Zoë, it is just plain “ucky.” Or am I just falling prey to the media’s panic machine?