germs are in the air...

Yes, sickness has been in the Stockton household! Mostly Gracie but Levi and I have been fighting off a few colds also. If you were able to avoid winter colds, then you're amazing and please let me know your secret! My poor little Grace... It started off as a cold. Then the horrible, tight cough came....RSV! We have had her on a breathing machine for the past week. Finally the cold and RSV crept away and what does she have now....2 ear infections! It just never ends. The good thing is that throughout all this mess she has been happy and pretty easy. Her teething was WAY worse than this. It just is so hard to see her cough so hard that she makes herself through up...so sad! It's so cute though, after she coughs she looks up and smiles like "I'm okay mom, it's not that bad."

Okay so I've already established that I am crazy but here is another reason why I have 20 knots of stress in my back.... I absolutely hate doctor's offices, especially the sick waiting rooms! I even hate vet offices. I have this crazy overwhelming fear of germs. When I had to take Gracie to the doctor's office I keep praying that she wouldn't start crying so I could keep her in her carseat. But no, she cried. I couldn't just pick her up because I had just touched the pen to sign my receipt, and we all know it had germs on it! Luckily, I had hand sanitizer in the diaper bag. I put some on but then I worried that if she somehow put my hand in her mouth (which she does) she would get some of the alcohol from the sanitizer. Quick I grabbed a wipe and wiped my hands really hard. Then I realized I needed to wipe off the seat handles since I knew she would touch them. After I made sure my hands were completely germ and alcohol free and anything within a 12 in radius of her was clean I picked her up (she cried for a little bit while I assessed the situation). But I still was freaking out! She keep trying to grab at her toys. I couldn't let her touch her toys because what if the toy to a part of the chair that I did not clean and then she put it in her mouth?! Or what if she dropped it on the floor, the dirty floor? Every few minutes I would grab a wipe and clean her hands and mine. Then they called me back. Okay, I had a problem. The nurse was waiting for me to come but I had the diaper bag, Gracie, and the car seat. I couldn't carry all of it and Gracie was being fussy so I couldn't put her back in the seat. I decided I needed to put the diaper bag in the carseat so I could carry them together. But I couldn't do that! The bottom of the diaper bag was sitting on a chair. The same chair that probably a sick child sneezed and coughed all over! If I put it in the car seat then Gracie would later sit there in the germ bath! What to do... the nurse was waiting....I was panicing.... Snap decision, I grabbed the diaper bag, dumped it upside down in the car seat so the germy bottom would be sticking up in the air and would not be touching where Gracie sits. All of the contents spilled out into the car seat. It was a mess but I was satisfied. The nurse looked at me in the strangest way and moms in the waiting room peeked over their magazine to see what in the world I was doing. I wanted to stare back at them and say "Well, you're letting your kids rub their hands on the dirty chair handles and touch the germ infested magazines, yes, I am crazy. But I bet you that mine didn't pick up any other germs while we're here but who knows about yours!