Decidedly, The Chick Came First

Meet Julia. She belongs to my three-year-old.

Last week while the kids were on vacation, I picked up six new chicks and brought them home.

No, not that kind of chick. (My husband would have reacted much differently if I brought home those kind of chicks.) Chick, as in baby chicken. Six of ‘em. Cute as can be.

Currently these little balls of fluff are living next to my washing machine in an old Pack n’ Play on loan from my chicken-owning-guru-and-friend, Kristi. We’re into week one of chicken ownership and I must say, it’s been enlightening.

I’ve been wanting my own laying hens for over a year now and started working on my husband long ago because I knew that having chickens catapulted me into a different category altogether. No longer content to grow my own vegetables or make jam from my own blackberries, now I wanted food producing animals. What was I anyway? A closet farmer? And what would I ask for next? A milking cow or grass grazing goat?

His first response over a year ago was, “Hell no.” (Or something to that effect.)

Next came, “We are NOT having chickens in the yard.” (Again, I’m paraphrasing.)

I’d make a comment to him and let it simmer. Try again a few weeks or months later. Finally one night after more chicken talk, he tried a different tactic and said, “When you publish your book you can get chickens.” I know he meant it to motivate me to get off my arse and publish my book (or at least work on it) but the comment felt more like what we say to our children about their grades… “You can get a cell phone when you earn all A’s…”

“Look,” I said to my husband. “I’m a grown woman with a Masters degree. If I want to get chickens, then I’m going to get chickens. I’m asking you out of respect. I’d like you to be on board with me.” I knew I would need his help with the coop and set-up, in addition to how much easier it would be to have his support. After that we shelved the chicken conversation for quite some time.

Fast forward a few months and while he may not be all the way on board (as in, I’ll never ask or expect him to clean or muck the coop) he is being extremely supportive. He’s already built me four nesting boxes and is going to trick-out the coop for me, even making sure the thing has a sun porch. Gosh I love that man.

I’ve also gotten a pretty mixed review from my neighbors, who think I’ve all but gone mad and perhaps over-the-top with this sustainable-eating-fresh-food thing. Worried that I’m going to turn this neighborhood into a live-action set from “Beverly Hillbillies,” the comments I’ve gotten are:

“You’re what?”

“Why?”

“Have you ever been around chickens?” (This is coupled with an incredulous, dumbfounded look.)

“Do you know how much they poop?” (Add curled lip in disgust.)

“Tell me why you’re doing this again?” (Tilt head, add above.)

“Are they going to be just roaming around your yard, or what’s the deal?” (Peer at me over bifocals.)

And the best from my sister-in-law: “Rachel wants chickens? Is this the same Rachel that doesn’t like germs? Is this my sister-in-law we’re talking about?”

While their response doesn’t shock me much, it certainly isn’t the egg-colored-glasses perspective that I’ve been reading about in my chicken bible. Yes, while Jesus is present in this one, albeit omnisciently (seriously, how does chicken mash and a worm turn into something I eat for breakfast with toast? Amazing!) Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John have nothing to say about the matter. My chicken bible, The Joy of Keeping Chickens, by Jennifer Megyesi was a gift from a neighbor’s daughter who knew I was interested in having laying hens. Her mother (my neighbor)—while she admires my chickens currently because they are palm sized and therefore not loud or smelly—can’t quite be labeled “enthusiastic” yet about my new adventure, and I secretly wonder if she’d like to kick her daughter for getting me my poultry bible to begin with. But that’s all water under the feeder now.

Everything I’ve read online and in my book (and I’ve done a lot of research) paints this lovely, picturesque painting of hen owning, one that is not only filled with emerald green meadows, bird chirp, and a fresh spring breeze, but also touts the myriad benefits of owning chickens. They eat ticks. They eat worms. They are fabulous for your garden. Their poop is great fertilizer. They are docile, loving, and smarter than people give them credit for. They are easy to maintain. They are maternal. Oh, and their eggs are pretty good too. Full of vitamins and nutrients. With yolks the color of the setting sun. You’ll never find a yolk like that in the grocery store.

And then there were my neighbors and anyone who ever owned a chicken or lived near people who owned chickens who cock their head to the side (much like a chicken, I might add) and inquire as to what exactly I’ve been drinking or smoking lately to make me want chickens. For a moment I was confused that there seemed to be two completely opposite camps: haters and lovers. Haters were real people. Lovers were published. Hmmm.

I suppose a book titled, “Why Keeping Chickens is a Pain in the Ass,” wouldn’t sell very well. Or, “Shit That Makes You Gag: 1001 Reasons Not to Own Chickens.” That probably wouldn’t be a very good title either.

In fact, this epiphany reminds me a lot of a conversation I had with my priest-friend some years back on the subject of birth control, specifically vasectomies. “Most of the married people I talk to say that having a vasectomy was the worse thing that happened to their marriage,” he told me. It didn’t occur to me until later that people who invited vasectomy into their marriage and loved it wouldn’t exactly go running to their neighborhood priest to tell him about it, would they? “Hey Father, just so you know, you were wrong about the vasectomy thing. We should’a done it years ago.”

It’s all about the audience really.

So the truth about owning chickens resides somewhere in the middle grey area of my happy-go-lucky book and my neighbors’ aghast astonishment. While I’m not regretting my decision, it would have been good for me to have this awakening before I actually bought the chicks.

But there they are, regardless. Six little balls of molting fluff and feathers living in a Pack n’ Play in my laundry room. My neighbors ask me frequently how it’s going and how the chicks are. I know that silently they are biding their time, knowing at some point I’m going to complain about the chicken poop smell, the frequent cage cleaning, the messy, grossness of it all, which will open the doors for them to nod their head with that I-told-you-so look on their face. I say bring it. Of course I’m going to complain. What’s a good blog without complaining? But I also have the final product in mind: fresh eggs, with deep sunny yolks, from chickens who lived a happy life.

And while I promise my intention isn’t to ruin the neighborhood with my bohemian tendencies and free-range birds (c’mon; my children are almost always clothed and we don’t hang our underwear on a clothesline yet), I am keeping chickens and a garden in the south part of Easton; once known for its peasant and archaic traditions such as farming food and raising animals. I mean, it’s not like I’m out of my element or anything.

And you, my dear readers, get to be with me all the way. You can live vicariously through my foibles. Lucky ducks chickens.

Meet the girls! From Top to bottom, clockwise: Molly, Giraffe, May, Blackie, Milly, and Julia.

Wanted: Cat With an Effective Mother

This is what I'm going for. 

Not this.

Last night I was just finishing dinner—chicken pot pie, salad, and apple slices—when I heard scratching and gnawing inside one of my cupboards. The cupboard I keep my Starbucks coffee and Wildflower iced tea in.

Now they’re trying to screw with my caffeine intake. Bastards.

Listening to the little scratchy-scratchy sounds gave me a stomach ache  and I didn't want to open the cupboard to inspect it, lest a mice might dive bomb me right at face level, and you all know what that would do to me.

Put me right in the asylum. Just hand me my straight jacket now.

I tried to call my husband who was supposedly on his way home, but he didn’t answer. Twice. I finally called my neighbor to come check it out since I couldn’t take the anxiety anymore. He did some inspecting and the long and the short of it is, found no mice. But they are still alive and well in my kitchen walls somewhere, probably with a paw full of poo to throw at me given the opportunity.

I can’t tell you how many people have suggested we get a cat. Just today my mother even brought it up.

“Well, what you need is a cat,” she said.

“I’ve considered that, but how do I know I’m going to get a mouser and not just a cat who likes to tinker around with them like stuffed toys?” I replied.

“You know, cats learn those things from their mother. If the mother cat teaches the kittens how to do it, then they’ll chase the mice,” she added helpfully. It always comes back to the mother doesn't it?

Fabulous. So she’s saying I need to scour the alleys looking for a street cat with street smarts, whose mother showed them the finer points of catching and killing rodents? Do you think the people at the MSPCA have the vitaes for the strays in their shelter, filed by personality habits and specialized skills? I’m pretty sure that most cats these days are from the genetic line of the washing-mittens-and-eating-pie type. Meow meow meow.

Perhaps I should just purchase a mouse at the pet store and secretly release it in various cat cages and see what the felines do. A little like an interview or performance evaluation. Chases mouse? Check. Catches mouse? Check. Kills mouse? Nope. Just bats it with paw and licks it. Move on to cat option #2. It’s times like these when it would be helpful if animals could talk, or if those space-age dog collars from the movie UP! were a reality. Then assessing whether a cat was up to the job would simply be a matter of questions.

“So, Tom, tell me about your past work experience.”

Tom: “Well, I used to work down on the west side of town,” he drawls with thick Italian accent, “right behind Jim’s Big Barbeque. To date I’ve captured, killed and disposed of (glances at slash marks on his furry forearm) 253 rodents of all sizes.”

I’d hire him on the spot, that Tom. Even if he was a chain smoker and had a penchant for licking himself.

But you can’t know until you’ve taken the cat home, got the darned thing acclimated to your home, and seen him in action. It’s a huge risk. That, and my husband and I are in a pretty good place. We get along well. We're jovial (mostly). We even have conversations. That this coincides with the death of my other cat two years ago is pure coincidence I'm sure. But I'm a little worried that bringing a new cat into the home would turn our topics of conversation towards, "Did you notice it smells like cat piss downstairs?" or "When's the last time you changed that litter box?" or "There's cat hair all over my workshirts." Am I ready to potentially sacrifice my spousal relationship to appease my germ-a-phobic, controlling, type-A nature?

If I find a new piece of mouse poo I am.

If anyone out there knows of a cat whose mother did her due diligence to the breed and taught the thing how to be a mouser, feel free to contact me. If I like the cat and it works out, I promise to reward you with a special treat: probably something I baked in my kitchen.

Mouse Tales Part Deux

 [If you’re just tuning in, I highly recommend reading the blog below first. (The Clock Struck One.) You don’t have to, but the story is funnier from the beginning. Just sayin’.]

I wake up on day two of my Germ Nightmare, (after having spent the night dreaming that I moved into a dorm room at ASU only to find that I had to slay a Troll, kill the snake that was wrapped around my legs and in my shoes—while I was wearing them—and fight off other hideous monstrosities in order to live there…honestly I have no idea what made me dream about that…) and I gently check in the cupboard to see if there are any rodent carcasses lying about.

Nope. But the bait is gone on one of them. Dammit.

Which gives me no amount of pleasure or comfort knowing that the mice are still running through my cupboards and pilfering the bait off the traps while giving me the finger.

I continue to clean the kitchen, pulling out the oven, disinfecting the sides of the stove where all the food spills, vacuuming behind the appliances checking for more mouse poop, and generally dismantling the kitchen area while trying to purge it of mouse feces. It was a beautiful day.

My husband got home later that evening, checked the traps that were in the cupboard, and we crossed our fingers and said a little prayer that the traps would work this time. (Maybe I was the only one praying come to think of it.)

Around 11:00 p.m. my SIL, BIL, and I were in the kitchen/living room talking when my BIL, who is leaning against the counter and facing the fireplace, starts pointing and shrieking at the wall behind me.

“AHHHHH!! Ahhhhhh!!!”  he yells. He’s yelling and pointing and gagging a little I think, and I’m starting to freak out because I’m not sure what he’s looking at behind me—a couple of glances didn’t reveal anything—and I’m wondering if he’s seeing an otherworldly specter, the grim reaper or maybe Jesus himself, and while he’s still yelling and pointing, I turn around long enough to see it…..

…a mouse that has popped out of a tiny hole between our mantel and the slate bricks of our fireplace and is now running along the fireplace, down onto the floor and into the floorboard heaters in the living room. I’d have rather seen Jesus.

 I’m not sure at what point I found myself sitting on the edge of my hutch with my feet ontop of the couch, but I do recall that I also started yelling for my husband, repeatedly calling his name with terror and immediacy in my voice, and I keep calling and calling and calling him, and I think “Where the hell is that husband of mine…is he outside?” because aren’t husbands supposed to come running when they hear their wife is in distress and screaming their name? Where’s my knight in cotton shorts when I need him?

But no, he isn’t outside, and he comes sauntering, sauntering I tell you, up the stairs and into the living room, like I always yell his name in fits of shock and panic and it’s no big deal that screaming wife who is sitting on the hutch with her feet on the back of the couch because she frequently has fits similar to these and why hurry.

“Did you see a mouse?” he says all casual-like; tones reminiscent of “did you get the mail,” or “pass the salt,” or “have you seen my wallet?” Like we see mice in our house every day. No. Big. Deal.

My husband is not an alarmist by the same measures that I am a germ-a-phobe, which is probably a good checks-and-balances system in our union, but I was kind of hoping that he’d locate the sucker, look for it, capture it, dispose of it, in front of me and before I decided to go to bed that night, just so I could rest peacefully and with the budding illusion that perhaps the only mouse responsible for all that crap in the cupboards was dead. But he didn’t.

He nonchalantly got another mouse trap, baited it with peanut butter, and placed it on the floor in the living room near the baseboard  heater where the thing disappeared.

“Aren’t you going to look for it any more than that?” I asked incredulously.

“Nope,” was his reply.

To say I was crestfallen is an understatement…but whatever I was feeling (a mixture of horror, anger, helplessness to name a few) one thing was certain: you can be damned sure I wasn’t going to be sleeping on the couch—where I had slept the night before because of snoring and company. I took the master bed. If my husband wasn’t going to find the mouse then he could sleep in the same room with it, a few feet away from it, and listen to the trap snap in the middle of the night all by his lonesome. Not me folks.

The next morning I awoke to whispers of good news. My SIL asked me, “Did you hear that we had caught the mouse?”

“Which one?” I asked.

“The one in the cupboard,” she said. “We heard the trap go off while we were talking. I cleaned out your cupboards with bleach and everything.”

“What about the one in the living room?” I inquired.

“I think the mouse we caught in the cupboards was the same one. I think he ran down the heaters and around to the kitchen. I’m sure that’s the only one.”

Now, I think I’d like to marry my SIL. Here is a woman who knows exactly how to lie to me, what illusions to feed me, so I can carry on with living in my house and cooking in my kitchen without fear and panic. She knows that I know there is more than one mouse, and that clearly it wasn’t the one in the living room; she knows I’m no idiot, and yet, she doesn’t make me feel stupid for my phobias, she just lies to me in order to help keep the pathways in my brain moving and not frozen. That, and she cleaned the cupboards with bleach. Because using a flame thrower to get rid of dead mouse germs is just too dangerous and pure acid is simply too strong; but she understands me enough (and she is such a good housekeeper herself) to know that bleach will do the trick and make me feel better. She is a smart, smart woman. My husband could really stand to take a pointer or two from her on how to handle me. Bless her bless her bless her.

I approach the living room couch, where my husband is curled up in blankets, and glance over at the trap that was set on the floor—and there lies dead mouse #2. Feet straight up in the air and still. That’s just how I like my mice….four legs in the air and on their backs. PETA people best stand back, because I’ll argue this with you till my death.

A check of the traps in the garage reveal another dead rodent—to bring the death total to three. And a few days ago, another trap in the garage caught mouse #4. Four dead within four days. There is still a baited trap in the cupboard which hasn’t seen any more action since its first body, but we’re leaving it there (along with a few more in the garage) to make sure we’ve caught all the pooping culprits before boarding up the cupboards and sealing holes. Nothing’s worse than mouse carcass in the walls I’ve been told. I’m happy to take their word for it.

And now? Well, the kitchen is really, really clean. During this event I purged many cupboard items I didn’t need, didn’t use, and simply served to collect rodent crap. I’ve cleaned behind my stove as well as the sides of the stove. I’ve vacuumed above my oven, and next to my fridge. Oh, and I get to buy a new toaster. Whoop Whoop. I may never store my cookie sheets and baking pans under the stove again (you can’t properly seal up a stove drawer) and there is a good chance that the plastic bin that currently houses those objects will become our newest piece of kitchen furniture. I’m okay with that. All I know is that the next mouse I see better be dead, or on TV being chased by an idiot cat.

The Clock Struck One...

Isn't he cute?

I’m curious why in our folkloric past we fondly sing of rodents. Three blind mice, Three blind mice…Hickory Dickory Dock, The mouse ran up the clock… And who can forget the adorable Jerry, constantly trying to escape that idiot cat Tom? Why he’s so cute it makes every child yearn for pet mouse, one that can slam doors and throw frying pans. More recently, Disney Pixar comes out with a fabulous animated flick of a rat trying to make a living in the fancy kitchens of France. (I think.) Rats are just mice on steroids, and you’ll forgive me for lumping them together. A rodent is a rodent is a rodent, especially one in the kitchen. I honestly can’t say I’ve seen Ratatouille start to finish because I can’t get past the idea that there is a warm blooded, hairy beast in a kitchen, who sits inside some nerd’s sweaty chef hat yanking on his hair. All I’m thinking is that it must really smell in that hat, that gross greasy head smell, and that now there’s rat poop all on top that guy's head, because honestly that rat is up there cooking up “specialties” for hours. We all know that rodents poop as often and profusely as their whiskers twitch, and well, while Pixar is nice enough to leave out these realistic tidbits, my mind won’t let them go. I’m a realist and a germaphobe. You can’t fool me. I will not be deceived.

But there’s nothing cute about rodents in the kitchen, nothing funny about it whatsoever and I can tell you how I know.

Last Thursday night, my family, my in-laws, my sister-in law, my brother in-law, (yes that’s all of them) and my son’s friend, arrived home at 9:30 p.m. after five days at a cabin in Maine. We were all exhausted, the house was filled with suitcases, bins of kitchen items, dirty beach towels, wet water toys,…you name it, it was littering all rooms of the house and down the hallway. A few of the adults were in the kitchen, emptying the clean dishwasher, when my BIL pulls down a canning jar that I keep in my lower cabinets next to the toaster.

It had a tiny piece of mouse poop on it.

He shows it to me and my husband, and we go, “Hmmm. That’s interesting. I wonder how that got there.”

And then my BIL pulls out more canning jars. And we find more poop. And now I’m not going, “Hmmm,” but “WTH?....”

And then he pulls out the toaster.

(You may want to put down any food you may be eating right now.)

And we look inside the toaster. And the bottom of the toaster is covered in mouse poop.

Covered. Like twenty five mice sat inside my toaster and had a pooping contest, seeing how much excrement they could push out and high fiving each other while doing the deed. And now I’m thinking:

“When’s the last time I made toast?”

Seriously,  how many of you look inside the toaster each time you plunk bread in it? You just take it for granted that the toaster is clean. I know I did. But I'm staring at what seems like four tablespoons of crap and I'm wondering: Is all this poop the result of days or months of rodent activity, or did the mice know we were on vacation in Maine and suddenly run through my cupboards with wild abandon? Is it possible for mice to poop that much in five days? I sure as hell hope it is. Because if it isn’t, my whole family has been eating Ego waffles and bagels smoked with fecal matter.

(Hang on a minute…my mouth is salivating and I think I may lose it…)

Well, needless to say the next hour or so was spent emptying out cupboards and searching for small, black, rodent droppings. Yep, found in three cupboards. Above the stove. In the stove drawer. No doubt behind the stove and in the lazy susan I refuse to use, and now for good reason.

I’m tired. At this point in my day I’m barely keeping it together, lest I cry and sob right in front of all my inlaws. Not that they’d be shocked or anything, it’s just not a very adult thing to do. I put on my victim hat and wondered why these things always happen to me. Because these events do nothing to assuage my psychological germ-baggage and instead fuel them like lighter fluid on a barbeque. You thought I was crazy before? Honey, I’ll never toast another piece of bread anywhere without inspecting the insides of the device I’m using. You were embarrassed of me ordering at a restaurant previously? Wait till I ask them if there is mice defecation inside their toaster. These episodes continue to make living with me a brand new experience every day.

So what did we do? We laid traps of course. Little cheap, wooden mice traps in my kitchen cupboards and in the stove. Did we catch anything?

Well. Yes and no. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the rest of the story. It gets better. Trust me.

Germophobe Confessions

Greetings to all you East Coast Musings readers from the Muddy Midwest.

I had to chuckle at Rachel’s post on germs, mainly because I could have written it myself. I adore finding fellow germophobes, partly because true g-phobes seem to be somewhat of a rare breed and mostly because no one else in the world can commiserate about the disgustingness that goes along with kids quite like a g-phobe parent.

Suffice it to say, I was tickled (and sickened) to read about Rachel’s kids and the Port-A-Potty while berry picking. It seems that kids of g-phobes really outdo themselves when it comes to indulging in germ-infested areas. I found myself totally cringing as I read, imagining what I would do had I been in her shoes (shudder).

Antibacterial wipes and gel are staples in my purse and mini-van. My kids and I never drive away from a store without cleaning our hands with a wipe. I adore the fact that most stores now offer wipes for the cart handles (one of the grossest surfaces on earth, in my opinion) just inside the door. So I get a few strange looks; I really don’t care. It’s so much better than touching feces, mucous and other nasty substances.

My kids are older now, so they have pretty much learned to maneuver through life (around me, anyhow) without getting too disgusting. However, the one area we can’t seem to stop butting heads on is money, one of the most germ-riddled items in the universe. My boys, ages 6 and 7, think it one of life’s divine pleasures to dump out and then count their many coins, especially right before bed.

Now I realize that kids don’t get the whole germ thing. I was a kid once, and a typically gross one at that. Most days, I had a dried crust of snot running up my sleeve from wiping my nose on it. I hated baths, only washed my hands when forced and had absolutely no qualms about touching public door handles/toilets/animals and then my own face.

Ugh.

However, I come from a long, proud line of germophobes. Rumor has it that my maternal grandmother refused to kiss my grandfather when they were first married until he rinsed his mouth with Listerine. My paternal grandmother would re-wash socks that fell on the floor in the transition between washer and dryer, until my father, then a child, pointed out that the socks would be on the floor momentarily anyhow. My father insisted that we rinse all dishes thoroughly before washing them because he couldn’t stand the thought of the clean dishes being washed in water with food floating around in it, a habit that has long stuck with me.

My hope is that my children, too, will someday be much more aware of germs than they currently are. Perhaps not quite to the extent of awareness that I possess, but at least so that they’re past the stage of petting the dog, horse and cat and then blissfully eating the snack I sent out without washing up, or dumping their filthy money all over my clean dining room table without a second thought.

And when their own kids produce some of the same unsavory behavior that their parents did (sucking on money; exchanging pacifiers with a complete stranger baby; putting their hands in their mouths after collapsing on the department store bathroom floor), I will laugh as I hand out antibacterial wipes.

Sarah E. Ludwig is a mom of four and a freelance writer based in South Dakota. She blogs most weekdays at Parenting By Trial and Error, has an article coming out in the June issue of Parenting: School Years, writes children’s books that haven’t yet seen the light of day, enjoys infrequent moments of solitude, and plans to hammer out that parenting book proposal by the end of 2010.

Germs. My Nemesis.

Today's blog is reposted from 2007. Since many of you are new to my blog, I figure it would be a good idea to get you up-to-speed on my neuroses regarding germs. If you're also a germ-a-phobe, grab some sanitizer and join me. It can be an isolating life in my head, but someone's got to do it.

One of the first things I need to explain a bit, in order that you may understand later posts, is my issue with Germs. Not any Germs mind you; not mine, or my kids, not Germs that come from people I know (as in, I'm happy to share a straw with my sisters or pick up that last bite of brownie from the floor using the ol' "five-second-rule,") but specifically Potty Germs, Stranger Germs, and Public Germs.

One of my few successes as a parent stems from the fact that I have taught both my children how to use a public restroom without physically touching any surface at all. Much to the dismay of my husband, who upon returning from a very long bathroom stop with my son, announced to me that the reason it took so long was because our son "was trying to flush the toilet with his foot and wouldn't touch the handle."
"So?" I replied.
"So?" My husband said. "Then he grabbed the door with the sleeve of his sweatshirt."

At this point I'm sure my husband was looking for me to be aghast with horror that our son has some kind of OCD issue at the age of 8, was looking for some type of affirmation that he was correct in being dismayed by this.

"I taught him that," I replied. (Smiling on the inside of course.) At which point my husband shot me that I-can't-believe-you've-dragged-our-kids-into-your-phobic-world-and-this-is-really-not-healthy look, and I shot the Everyone-needs-counseling-anyway look right back at him and the conversation was over.

Maybe this stems from the time I walked in on my 17 month-old daughter sucking on the toilet seat and I actually thought, Would CPS frown on me swishing her mouth out with some 100 proof? If that's not vision enough to put a germ-phobic mom right into needing medication, I don't know what is.

Port-a-potty's are another source of incredible discomfort for me. First, there is no running water and/or soap. Second, if it is one lucky enough to be equipped with hand sanitizer it is usually empty. Third, it smells, there are flies everywhere (the very same flies I might add that land on your picnic-potato-salad) and most people don't respect them and well, waste is everywhere.

How many of you grew up being told to "line the seat with toilet paper?" That was one of my mother's mantras, right after, "Buckle up," and "Are their parents home?" I have happily lined toilet seats for over thirty years and have passed this beautiful tradition on to my children. I don't care how many experts tell me that no communicable diseases can be caught from bum-germs on a toilet seat, I am not going to believe them.

Did you know that over 1/3 of people who use public restrooms DON'T WASH THEIR HANDS? Think about that the next time you grab for that door handle. Or use the port-a-potty.

Which brings me to Stranger Germs/Public Germs. Door handles (again), elevator buttons, escalator hand railings (do you know what they have found on those things?), public indoor play spaces (at the mall, fast food restaurants-anything containing a ball pit-never, never, never let them in a ball pit) cigarette ashtrays and trash cans. There is nothing quite like seeing your child go to throw something away and holding the snap-back-at-you trash can lid open with the palm of their hand. All that black sticky goo, smudges of what can only be described as sickly brown and yellow, not to mention people that haven't washed their hands who have thrown something away...I have tried to show my children how to hold open the lid with a napkin and quickly throw away their trash before the lid snaps back at them sending filth and Germs flying, but let's face it. I'm lucky if the trash lands in the trashcan while they hold it open for longs periods of time with their pudgy palm. Sigh.

Now, having boldly announced to the world (some of ) my phobias, let me tell you that the things my children love most in this world are:

1. Public Restrooms
2. Port-A-Potty's
3. Public Play Spaces
4. Escalators and Trash Cans

In fact, on a recent raspberry-picking trip (happy New England memories here) my children and their friends found the Port-a-potty to be significantly more fascinating than the berry picking. Suddenly the children who never have to go to the bathroom before we leave the house, have to "really, really, go" as soon as we get there and it's discovered there is a hairy-nasty-black-cloud-hanging-over-it, Germ-infested Port-a-potty by the berry bushes. It's suddenly laughter and chasing, and doors opening/shutting/opening/shutting, yelling ("Get out of here, it's my turn!") and general happy kid melee, and then they are running over to announce to me, "Mom, it's all wet in there and now the bottom of my pants are wet..." and I'm trying not to overreact (because what kind of parent overreacts at this type of behavior) all-the-while I'm gagging silently to myself and now the kids are picking raspberries, with their grubby, dirty, filthy, bathroom, Port-a-potty germy hands, and I smile and say,

"Boy won't these berries make a good pie."

In fact, for their next birthday parties, I have decided instead of spending money on inflatable bouncy castles or cheap fast food burgers, I'm going to rent an arsenal of Port-a-potty's and filthy trash cans. Once they are finished playing with these, we'll go the mall and finish up with a romp in the public play space and a few rides on the escalator. I figure this way they will be happy as pigs-in-mud (not a far off analogy) and I'll save a lot of money.

I may need to be medicated first.

Buh-Bye Sasquatch; Until Next Week…

I started this morning with one goal: to clean the master bedroom. For some reason our master bedroom has been the go-to dumping ground for the twelve blissful years I’ve been married. I’m not laying blame anywhere-honestly it’s mostly me. Cleaning rooms in the house is on a priority system:

1. The living room, kitchen, and entryway since this is what anyone who comes to the house will see upon first impression.
2. The hall bathroom since hypothetical guests could potentially use it, however you remember what happened the last time I only cleaned the hall bathroom. That’s right, my son took it over and the guest used the dirty bathroom downstairs. Now it’s on the list, moved in with the hall commode at #2.
3. The kid’s rooms. Mostly because their friends are over playing, we need to find homework, or I’m tired of twisting my ankle on clarinet cases and glitter balls at 10 p.m. when trying to say goodnight to the kids.
4. The office and toy room. I’m not really motivated to clean these rooms, mainly because the toy room always looks like a garage sale gone bad, and the office is attached to it. I figure the kids need at least one room to be messy in, and I work so sporadically from my office desk (preferring to sit upstairs and type on the couch) it’s not a huge motivator. This, and I can blame the entire contents and state of those rooms on my children, not my lack of housekeeping.
5. The master bathroom. I don’t use this and rarely clean it. The master bathroom was the architect’s way of “sticking it to the man” since it is so small we should refer to it as the Toilet Closet. A moment of visualization: when my husband is shaving, his stomach touches the sink while his butt grazes the back wall. It’s a thumbnail of a bathroom if ever I’ve seen one and I quit using it about two weeks after moving in. There is something nice about taking a shower without your elbows hitting the tiles as you wash your hair. Call me a princess. So this reigns unimportant at #5.
6. Master bedroom. Here it is. Finally. This is where I’ve relegated the main sleeping room in our home. Way down here at number six. Now all I need to mention is that in the last 10 months I’ve only ever made it to #4. The reason it's here and not before the master bathroom (which I rarely clean) is that the bathroom tends to stink first. Just so you know what I'm dealing with. If it doesn't stink and noone's going to see it, why bother cleaning it?

That saying “it gets worse before it gets better” never applied more than when cleaning this room. There were seven loads of dirty laundry heaped in the center of the room which I sorted into colorful piles in the hallway. I vacuumed the floors and then dusted and washed them with the Swiffer. I dusted all surfaces in the room which required me to move all the crap from the dresser onto the bed. The sheets need to be changed, but I can’t do that until the floor has dried and I trash/organize/put things back on the dressers not to mention wash all the laundry since we only use one set of sheets. The floors are bare and clean, but my hallway is now inaccessible due to the laundry piles, vacuum, laundry hamper, bag of trash, and bag for the attic. I’m two loads of laundry in and the clean piles are now heaped onto the beloved pool table downstairs that now serves as laundry-folding-central-station.

I’m also battered-dipped head-to-toe in fuzzy, dusty, lint from slaying the Sasquatch under my bed. I think I’ve mentioned him before. He’ll be back all too soon though—no more than a couple weeks—since the weather is nice and the windows are open. I’m wearing a black long sleeved shirt. Note to self: black shirt is  not preferred cleaning wardrobe, unless you are planning on attending a costume party dressed as a used Swiffer pad. Which would probably win you a Most Creative Costume award.

I’m going to clean it right since another 6-8 months will pass before this room feels the soft cloth on it’s hardwoods, or is tickled by the wet mop again.

 

So here it is. The final room. I know, you're asking yourself, "What kind of self-aggrandizing sicko takes pictures of results from cleaning? Isn't that her job as a stay-at-home mother?" Well I'd counter that with "What kind of self-depricating sicko admits to the world that she only cleans her bedroom once annually?" It's not to boast; rather it serves as CYA documentation to child protection agencies who may suspect my children live in filfth and squalor daily, and also as photographic proof that my bedroom at one time in history was clean. Chances are good if you come visit, instead showing you the bedroom during the house tour I'll simply point to the 8x10 glossies on the door and assure you there's nothing illegal going back there. Enjoy it while you can.

Boogers, snot, and mucus; the childhood "triple threat."

I’ve spent the better part of the past two weeks watching my baby daughter perform magic tricks with her nose. (No, this isn't her. But I feel this parent's pain.) Every year February hits, and I’m crossing my fingers and legs that our family doesn’t get hit with the winter crud, but inevitably, everyone seems to come down with some version of the latest and greatest cold.

As a rule, my youngest daughter’s body tends to manifest colds and viruses in the form of fevers, ranging anywhere from four to ten days. I’m used to these fevers, know how to deal with them, and even keep a fever journal. It’s not uncommon for my daughter’s viral fevers to hit 105 degrees. I usually wait 72 hours, before taking her in, only to have our pediatrician tell me to “continue piggy backing Tylenol and Motrin, and come back in about 6 days if her fever hasn’t broken.” Well, okay. I can do that. The last time I brought my daughter in for her well visit, he asked me about her fevers.
“So, it looks like here (reading her chart) that she hasn’t had one of her fevers since November.”
“No, actually, she had another fever bout in December. It got up to 106,” I replied.
“You mean 100.6? Or 106? That’s a huge difference,” my pediatrician stated, with a tinge of worry on his face.
“No, 106,” I told him. “I just kept giving her Tylenol and Motrin, like we usually do.”
“Okay,” he starts off. “I know you’re used to dealing with her high fevers, but when it hits 106, we really should take a look at her,” he told me, incredulously. As I was leaving the office I overheard him telling another pediatrician, “…her child had a fever of 106, and she didn’t bring her in because she is so used to dealing with them…” laced with can-you-believe-this tone. Okay, point taken. Apparently there is a limit to how hot your child is allowed to be.

I mention this little episode, because until two weeks ago, my youngest had yet to catch the common cold, typical of every little person from birth to ten. Which is why I was so unprepared to deal with her nose. She didn’t sleep 24 hours a day like her feverish episodes. She’s in a quandary about whether to breath or suck on her binky, and at her very young age, has managed to create a hybrid system where she can do both. It’s suck-suck-suck-suck-BREATHE-uhh-BREATHE-uhh-suck-suck-suck-suck-BREATHE-uhh-BREATHE-uhhh. The binky’s enveloped in a web of snot, and she’s up, running around, leaving a slime trail all over the house.

One minute she’s playing with her toys, face clean as you please, and the next I look over and her head is a glistening pool of mucus. She’s got a snotty nose that could rival the best stereotypic-diaper-clad-trailer-park-two-year-old in winter. She was making some magnificent sounds the other day, until I looked over and found that the snot was bubbling around her vibrating lips, lending a new instrumentation that-while grotesque-was oddly pleasing. Curious to hear more, but feeling the mom-guilt stab at me, I grabbed for the tissue and put and end to her melody, but silently wondered what the rest of her opus would have sounded like.

In addition to her musical talents, she also performs a version of the rainbow-handkerchief-up-the-sleeve trick, wherein I’ll wipe her nose, and there’s a long string of booger that refuses to give in. I’m pulling-wiping-pulling-wiping, and it’s changing colors; it’s blue, now red, here comes the green one, next is yellow, and finally after pulling-and-wiping and changing tissues five times to no avail, I relent and break the dammed booger off, leaving the stringy end in her nose to be pulled again at a later date.

If it’s not the stringy booger trick, it’s the “where’s the slug?” trick. You’ve all seen this one; that thick yellow slug-booger slowly inches its way down the upper lip and just before you lean in for the kill, SUCK! its gone again. You wait, staring at your toddler’s nose for the booger-slug to emerge. Seconds later, there it is... the nasty little creature slimes it’s way out and down the lip, but you’re ready this time, you’ve almost got the fleshy booger in your grasp, and SUCK! it disappears. At this point I really want to yell at my 20-month-old daughter to “QUIT SUCKING IT IN!” but she’s running now, with the slug on her lip, and a new slug emerges, sitting-bitch to the next one, both going for a joy ride on my daughter’s face while she laughs and runs in the opposite direction from me. You can faintly hear those slug boogers chanting, “You can’t catch us, we’re the booger-slug men!” I finally trap my daughter in her room, coming after her with fifteen tissues, and find her “hiding” from me on her sister’s bed. “Hiding,” for my toddler, consists of covering her eyes and putting her face down so she can’t see you. Never mind she’s standing there in the middle of the room in plain sight. I make it over to her only to find…you guessed it. Dead slug-booger carcass all over her sister’s sheets. Lovely.

In fact, one doesn’t need to step too far into my home to see the slimy, gelatinous, mucus remnants from my daughter. There’s sticky residue on the light switches she reaches to click-on-click-off-click-on-click-off, there are clear stripes marking her place at the table, and of course the back of her chair where she pulls herself up. Clear dried residue from cheek to ear. Tacky little fingers encased in lint and dirt, from wiping her nose and playing on the carpet. At the height of the snot infestation, I would get her up in the morning to find a crusty, yellow conglomeration sealing the nostrils almost totally shut, save for two small air holes; looking like someone tried to paper mache a mask on her over night. The dried nose crust is the worst to try and remove. At some point in all our lives, we’ve tried to pop that little nose zit or black head, the one that makes your eyes water just contemplating, the one that you swear you’re going to let fester, because you cannot bear the pain of getting rid of it. I’m trying to figure which would hurt less; peeling the booger crustacean off with a putty knife? Chipping away at it with my pinky-nail? Trying to steam it off, with a humidifier and towel? Either way there is going to be screaming. My daughter is not going to be too happy about it either.

I’d like to know if anyone has ever thought of trying to harvest childhood mucus. My daughter’s yellow-ooze is so sticky I have a million uses for it at home. Hanging wallpaper, is one thing that comes to mind. Gluing the broken head on my Willow Tree figurine, is another. The kid’s many paper projects. Christmas crafts. Heck, I bet with enough snot, you could even use it as an adhesive under your laminate flooring. Forget super glue! Hot glue is so 90’s! Go “green” and repurpose your child’s infectious mucus. Imagine how much money you could save, if you follow the mantra, “Reduce, reuse recycle.”

But how to harvest the slime? A bucket around my child’s head, while cost-effective, seems a tad abusive and would get in the way of nap and bed times, which are prime booger-collecting opportunities. No doubt we’ve all got that classic blue bulb-syringe hanging around somewhere in the house. The standard-issue hospital parting gift, for dropping a few thousand at their facility to give birth to your baby. I love the fact that everyone gets one of these syringes, (which are sooo much more useful than, say diapers would be) and yet the pediatrician always tells you not to use them. My kids always had more fun using it as a teether (it can get way in the mouth for those back teeth cuttings) than I ever did trying to suck snot from their nose. We’ve all been there, one spouse trying to hold the child’s thrashing head still in vice-like grip, the other parent trying to keep the bottom of the bulb compressed while attempting not to give their child an accidental frontal-lobotomy cramming said bulb up child's very small nostril. No... decidedly, NOT effective.

I came upon the Nosefrida Nasal Aspirator, while doing a Google search on boogers. (It’s always amazing what you come up with when you Google such words.) This device actually has a mucus-catching reservoir, which would be perfect if you’re trying to use your child’s snot as family glue. Basically, you stick the reservoir end into the child’s nose, place the end of the tube in your own mouth, and then suck your child’s boogers right out their little nasal cavity. Don’t worry, you won’t get the salty mess in your mouth, thanks to the snot-trap at the end of the reservoir. Really, they’ve thought of everything. With only a $15 dollar investment, think how much snot you could harvest during a standard cold and flu season: 1 nose aspirator + 3 sick children= unlimited booger glue possibilities. Priceless.

Things that go "crawl" in the night.

“Hello. My name is Rachel Vidoni, and I’m a Germ-A-Phobic.” I thought introductions were necessary here, in case you’re new to my blog or simply need reminding of my neurosis when it comes to all things germy. In fact, if you also belong to this particular support group, you might want to stop reading right now. Put your hands over your eyes and hit the red x up there in the corner. Tune in when I post another blog.

I also understand if, after reading this, you decide you don’t want to know me anymore. Turn in the friendship card. Cancel our coffee date. I don’t blame you.

One of my worst parental fears has come true; I met my neurotic phobia “head-on” if you will, last Saturday morning, when peering through my child’s hair, I found:

The “L” Word.

Yes, the modern day form of Leprosy, those nasty little crawlers that put the fear of God in the hearts of parents everywhere. My poor child was crying (who wouldn’t) and it was one of those moments where I absolutely, positively, had to be the adult lest I scar my child for life.
“You have lice.” I calmly said. “Dad is going out to buy some shampoo.” My child was freaked out, but my reassurance was downright medical. “It’s no big deal. We’ll take care of it, and you’ll be fine.”

At that point I instructed my child to stay in the bathroom (and remain there for hours…) while I slipped into the hallway, gagged, jumped up and down in disgust, and fought back bile and tears. Oh, quit your laughing. I know that if this is the worst thing I have to deal with as a parent I’m pretty lucky. I know that at least it isn’t cancer, or another dread disease. I realize we’ll get over it, and things will be fine. I get it.

Out of respect to my child, I will go no further describing my child’s involvement. But I will let you in on a few things that now go on in my head. (Not on my head, Praise you Jesus.)

First, I have morphed into one big itch. My leg itches-I have body lice. My eye twitches- the suckers are feasting on my cornea. My toe throbs-I’m sure somehow the vermin have found a way inside my muscle wall. I actually considered walking through the house with a blowtorch and a can of Aqua Net. The mass burnings of the Great Plague no longer elude me. My husband and I piled all the potentially “contaminated” articles onto the floor of the toy room, and proceeded to do laundry from there. In fact, I have one more load to go, 7 days later. I have decided that throw pillows are unnecessary; stuffed animals contraband. I have a bid on e-bay for three cases of clear shower caps, which I am considering making a dress requirement for all family and visitors.

I have told only a few family members and close friends-not even wanting to joke about it myself. “What will people think? Will they start staring at my head all the time? Will they refuse to let our children play together?” It’s one of the largest silent social secrets of all time, probably next to swinging. It’s something adults whisper about in hushed tones, only divulging their own personal familial battle after they have seen a friend’s RID bottle wedged between the folds of the newspaper while in line at CVS. It’s that illusion bubble popped, as people wonder, “WE can’t have it! We’re (rich, clean, smart, funny, normal…fill in your adjective).”

This event has transformed the way I see the world, and unfortunately, not for the better.
I am doing errands at Target, and see an employee scratch her head. “I bet she has lice,” I think. A few more employees later, I witness another itcher. “Yep, everyone who works here has it.” I wonder if there are nits lying around on the shopping carts I touch-the backpack from school, the plate the neighbors sent over with cookies. I stare at the backs of people’s heads watching for movement. I cringe (just a little) when my children want to have the neighbors over to watch a movie, or get out all the blankets and make a fort. The movie theatre is one big, fat contamination area. Airplane seats the enemy. My good friend (and secret-lice-sister) suggested taking plastic bags with me and laying them behind my children’s head in any public setting. Now you’re being downright silly, you say. Honey, that’s only part of my problem.

I now check all my children and my husband every night-and have discovered no invaders. One remaining issue resides in the fact that I must trust my husband to look through my hair and detect the undetectable. My husband (bless his heart) can’t find his car keys in the car key drawer. “Where did you find the keys?” he’ll ask as I hand them to him once again. “In the drawer,” I sigh, “where they always are.” “Huh,” he replies. “I thought I looked there.”
You can imagine the solace this gives me, as he exclaims, “No honey, don’t see a thing.” Since I have little confidence that he would be able to find anything, (were there anything to find) I shampooed with the special stuff twice, blow dry my hair every night- making sure to sufficiently burn my scalp in all areas-pull it back into a ponytail, and refuse to scratch my head with my fingers, lest I should accidentally get an invisible nit under my fingernails, and pass it along to one of my family. Would you like to have coffee now?

The people I have told, have been very supportive. One of my good friends told me that lice only like really clean heads, so I should take that as a compliment. She informed me that people who are homeless don’t have lice, because their heads can be so dirty. Well, if that’s the case, I’m packing the children up tomorrow because I found a perfect bench on the Common, with a fab view of the Frog Pond.

I had never heard this particular assertion, so I did a little research. There is enough conflicting web information to make a person scratch their head. Lice is hard to get rid of. It’s easy to get rid of. Lice only like clean heads. Lice don’t care how clean your head is, as long as you have one. Cover your head in mayonnaise and wear a shower cap to bed. NEVER use mayonnaise and a shower cap, it’s bad for you. Lindane is the best pesticide to get rid of the bugs. Lindane is an incredibly toxic chemical and should never, never be used to get rid of lice. The best yet, was that gasoline and kerosene get rid of lice. The one side effect is you might unintentionally off your kids. There were so many mixed messages, that the blowtorch and Aqua Net idea started sounding logical. My mother poo-pooed me. MY mother. The woman who handed me her phobia genes, said, “Rachel, relax. It’s like you’re trying to kill a fly with a brick.”

Well, at least I would know the fly is dead. I am nothing, if not psychotically thorough.
As my child complains about having to sit still for an hour while I comb my child’s hair, I think to myself, “There will a come a day, when you’ll be glad I was so nit-picky.”

Potty Mouth

10 minutes before we needed to leave for the bus this morning, my son shouts, “Mom! The baby’s mouth smells like poop!”

I deep sigh. Even given the fact that my son tends to be somewhat of an attention seeking-hog, this announcement is not good news.

I wander into my son’s room , who is still yelling “Gross! Nasty! She ate poop! Oh man that’s disgusting!” and try to figure out what is going on. Sure enough, there is a teeny tiny turd on the carpet at her feet, and after doing a quick sniff… yep her breath smells like doodie.

“Where did she get a turd?” I yell. I look at my other two children. Their saucer eyes light up with that it wasn’t me look. But since the cat kicked it last December, I have no one to blame but the five people living in this house. Apparently random turdletts fall from our shorts without us noticing. And leave it to my baby daughter to find the smallest, tiniest bit of excrement possible and then enjoy it like a tootsie roll pop.

My third child is unlike the other two in a few ways. Mainly, the amount of things she can find to stuff into her orifice knows no bounds. She can and will put anything—I mean anything—into her mouth and chew, suck and try to swallow it. In fact I am wondering if she was born without taste buds, because I have found nothing that makes her turn up her nose, nothing she shudders and spits out, nothing she licks and leaves. My other two children were never ones to put much in their mouth, preferring to play with odd objects, or squish things. Even when my son found some aspirin on the floor, he took one lick, gagged and spit it out. Such a good boy.

So the fact that my youngest can digest handfuls of soil, small rocks, pennies, nickels, lint balls, leaves and flowers off house plants, soap bars, anything within reach inside a trash can, leaf mulch, tree pollen and now feces, with the same excitement and enthusiasm that she shovels down her cheese cubes and green peas, absolutely baffles me. I have pulled all these objects out of her mouth, which she vehemently refuses to give me, as if I am trying to swab the gruel out of a third-world-child’s cheeks.

My daughter also starts every meal by throwing a handful of food onto the floor. It’s not a sign that she’s finished or full, and after the first handful or so, she happily consumes what’s on her tray. But the introduction of a new food on the tray initiates the toss-over as well, and by the time she’s completed her eating escapade, the floor has more food on it than what found its way into her belly. This confused me at first, until, after taking her down from her snack chair and proceeding to the sink for a wet rag to clean the floor, I arrive back at the table to find my daughter hoovering up the remains of lunch as fast as she can grip the slimy bananas and old toast bits that she refused to eat any more of a moment earlier. In fact, I have come to discover that my daughter actually prefers to eat off the floor and under the table. There is not a crumb infested cranny, nor a nasty nook in my kitchen that is safe from the diet desires of my daughter. The older and crunchier the remains are, the better she likes it. Apparently throwing food from her tray is her small way of self-preservation. In the event that I stop providing meals for her, at least she’s covered.

My daughter can sniff out actual consumable food like an emaciated rat and has pin-point radar for ground debris. I should know not to leave her alone in a room, unless its padded and she's in a straight jacket. Why was I surprised that poop finally made the list?

I grab my daughter and proceed to try and wipey out her mouth. I consider giving her a shot of grain alcohol, or squirting some anti-bacterial gel into her mouth to at least kill the germs and rid the brown tongue, but I'm out of both. Since she can’t swish-and-spit, Listerine and soapy water won’t work. Tilex and Lysol Foaming Bath cleaner just seem wrong (but I am dealing with poop here), and while using those would probably secure them a book deal later in life and kill the germs, I’d probably be in jail which would leave my husband to raise three kids by himself, and well, he can’t braid hair. So, I’m just left with a little innocent wipey which isn’t doing much to alleviate the brown tongue. I have to sit in the bathroom and silently gag to myself knowing that poop germs are swimming in her system. At this point I should have just let her down and encouraged her to suck on the toilet, because as gross as that is, there is less poop on my commode than my carpets apparently. Who knew.

I call a couple neighbors and friends to ask if their children have ever eaten poop and what they did about it. Nope. Nothing. No one else’s child has ever eaten poop. Only mine. Mine mine mine.

I call the pediatrician, and ask to speak with a nurse. I’m not paying a $30 co-pay if I can get this info on the phone.
“All the nurses are busy, I’ll take a message and have them call you back. What seems to be the problem?” the receptionist asks.
“Well,” I explain, “My daughter ate a little turd this morning, and I’m just wondering if there’s anything I need to do.”
“Was it animal or human?”
I suppose this makes a difference, but at the moment poop is poop.
“Human.” (Of course no one has come forward to own this piece of crap, so I am assuming it’s human, and didn’t wander in on someone shoes, or, or…hang on I’m feeling dizzy.

The nurse calls me back an hour or so later. The baby’s poop breath is gone by this time.
“Mrs. Vidoni? I talked with the doctor, and he said there is nothing to worry about, your daughter will be fine. There’s nothing you can do about it anyway.”
“She can’t get ecoli, or anything?” I ask.
“No,” she quietly chuckles. “She’ll be fine.”
And that was it. Quick, to the point, and I saved 30 bucks.

It amazes me that a person can eat a piece of relatively fresh human fecal matter and have no ramifications from that, but I can’t buy a bag of spinach or fresh tomatoes from the grocery store without getting fifty diseases. How exactly does that work?

It’s been my prayer for some time now, that God might help me deal with my OCD issues. Leave it to His big sense of humor to give an extremely germ-a-phobic-especially-gross-things-from-floors-and-bathrooms-mom a third child who has a penchant for all things disgusting, grimy and previously-left-by-others. Who not only plays with these objects, but eats them. If my daughter’s behavior was supposed to be a way to try and help curb my worrying or lessen my anxieties, it isn’t working. Right after I got off the phone with the pediatrician, I called my doctor. I need to start taking Prozac again.

Germs

One of the first things I need to explain a bit, in order that you may understand later posts, is my issue with Germs. Not any Germs mind you; not mine, or my kids, not Germs that come from people I know (as in, I'm happy to share a straw with my sisters, or pick up that last bite of brownie from the floor using the ol' "five-second-rule,") but specifically Potty Germs, Stranger Germs, and Public Germs.

One of my successes as a parent stems from the fact that I have taught both my children how to use a public restroom without physically touching any surface at all. Much to the dismay of my husband, who, upon returning from a very long bathroom stop with my son, announced to me that the reason it took so long was because our son "was trying to flush the toilet with his foot, and wouldn't touch the handle."
"So?" I replied.
"So?" My husband said. "Then he grabbed the door with the sleeve of his sweatshirt."
At this point I'm sure my husband was looking for me to be aghast with horror, that our son has some kind of OCD issue at the age of 8, was looking for some type of affirmation that he was correct in being dismayed by this.
"I taught him that," I replied. (Smiling on the inside of course) At which point my husband shot me that I-can't-believe-you've-dragged-our-kids-into-your-phobic-world-and-this-is-really-not-healthy look, and I shot the Everyone-needs-counseling-anyway look right back at him and the conversation was over.

Maybe this stems from the time I walked in on my 17 month-old daughter sucking on the toilet seat and I actually thought, Would CPS frown on me swishing her mouth out with some 100 proof? If that's not vision enough to put a germ-phobic mom right into needing medication, I don't know what is.

Port-a-potty's are another source of incredible discomfort for me. First, there is no running water and/or soap. Second, if it is one lucky enough to be equipped with hand sanitizer, it is usually empty. Third, it smells, there are flies everywhere (the very same flies I might add that land on your picnic-potato-salad) and most people don't respect them and well, waste is everywhere.

How many of you grew up being told to "line the seat with toilet paper?" That was one of my mother's mantras, right after, "Buckle up," and "Are their parents home?" I have happily lined toilet seats for over thirty years and have passed this beautiful tradition on to my children. I don't care how many experts tell me that no communicable diseases can be caught from bum-germs on a toilet seat, I am not going to believe them.

Did you know that over 1/3 of people who use public restrooms DON'T WASH THEIR HANDS? Think about that the next time you grab for that door handle. Or use the port-a-potty.

Which brings me to Stranger Germs/Public Germs. Door handles (again), elevator buttons, escalator hand railings (do you know what they have found on those things?), public indoor play spaces (at the mall, fast food restaurants-Anything containing a ball pit-never, never, never let them in a ball pit) cigarette ashtrays and trash cans. There is nothing quite like seeing your child go to throw something away and holding the snap-back-at-you trash can lid open with the palm of their hand. All that black sticky goo, smudges of what can only be described as sickly brown and yellow, not to mention people that haven't washed their hands who have thrown something away...I have tried to show my children how to hold open the lid with a napkin and quickly throw away their trash before the lid snaps back at them sending filth and Germs flying, but let's face it. I'm lucky if the trash lands in the trash while they hold it open for longs periods of time with their pudgy palm. Sigh.

Now, having boldly announced to the world (some of ) my phobias, let me tell you that the things my children love most in this world are:
1. Public Restrooms
2. Port-A-Potty's
3. Public Play Spaces
4. Escalators and Trash Cans

In fact, on a recent raspberry-picking trip (happy New England memories here) my children and their friends found the Port-a-potty to be significantly more fascinating than the berry picking. Suddenly the children who never have to go to the bathroom before we leave the house, have to "really, really, go" as soon as we get there and it's discovered there is a hairy, nasty, black-cloud-hanging-over-it, Germ-infested Port-a-potty by the berry bushes. It's suddenly laughter and chasing, and doors opening/shutting/opening/shutting, yelling ("Get out of here, it's my turn!") and general happy kid melee, and then they are running over to announce to me, "Mom, it's all wet in there, and now the bottom of my pants are wet..." and I'm trying not to overreact (because what kind of parent overreacts at this type of behavior) all-the-while I'm gagging silently to myself and now the kids are picking raspberries, with their grubby, dirty, filthy, bathroom, Port-a-potty germy hands, and I smile and say,
"Boy won't these berries make a good pie."

In fact, for their next birthday parties, I have decided instead of spending money on inflatable bouncy castles or cheap fast food burgers, I'm going to rent an arsenal of Port-a-potty's and filthy trash cans. Once they are finished playing with these, we'll go the mall and finish up with a romp in the public play space and a few rides on the escalator. I figure this way they will be happy as pigs-in-mud (not a far off analogy) and I'll save a lot of money.

I may need to be medicated first.