Germaphobe

Can I just say that I am SO F-ING DONE with flu season!!!?!!  BAHHHHH.

I have this anxiety issue when it comes to infectious stomach bugs.  I've always been totally paranoid about getting sick.  Well someone should have warned me that paranoid feeling would grow exponentially when I became a mom.

Last year the baby was still fairly small, and I was still on maternity leave, so it was easier.  When there was a lot of illness in the community I kept him home.  Safe and protected in our vomit-free home.  Well now that he's in daycare I'm faced with daily anxiety about what communicable disease he's going to come home with next.  It's not like I can hose him down in Lysol (although the thought has occurred to me).

I've come to terms with the fact that he's going to have lots of colds (in fact he's had 4 or 5 already just in the 6 weeks that he's been going to daycare).  But these stomach flu-type illnesses are a whole other story.  It just freaks me out.  I can't really explain it.  I just have this totally irrational anxiety about it.  (Yes, I'm a nurse.  Other people are allowed to be sick - just not me or my family.  Don't judge.)

He's only been sick with one of these bugs once - about 3 weeks ago it went around the daycare.  I was almost relieved when he finally did get sick because it was like I could stop worrying about it.  And luckily he had a really mild case so it wasn't the catastrophic puke-and-poop fest I had envisioned.

Well today I go to pick him up at daycare and hear about how a couple of the kids have been sick with vomiting and diarrhea, and this feeling of anxiety and dread washes over me.  NOT AGAIN!  I hate this.

I wish I could just keep him home and prevent him from being exposed to all this crap.  And I don't wanna hear about how "it's good for his immune system" or how "if he's sick a lot now he'll be healthier later" because it really doesn't make me feel any better.  I'm still a bundle of nerves waiting for the barf-bomb to hit.

I CAN'T WAIT for this part to be over.