Busy Bodies

Today, like every Wednesday, my daughter is off to a crafty-run around-sing-dance-games playgroup at the local community centre. It took me a few weeks to get the name right, all I could remember were “crafts'” and “tumbling” so for awhile I called it Running With Scissors.

The benefit of groups like these is that she gets out of the house for an hour or two, which is especially important when the weather sucks so badly and Mommy can’t stand anymore eternally joyful Spanish explorer characters on the DVD player.

However, the downside is that these groups tend to be germ incubation facilities and every freaking time she goes, she gets sick within a couple of days. This one, maybe a little less so, but the pure tumbly-run around-expend all energy group on Sundays is like a zombie infestation of germs.

Is it because parents let their sick kids go to playgroups, thinking they are on the mend or not quite sick enough to stay home? Or are germies transferrable long before we detect them? Is it better to protect my kid for her first 18 years and not let her out of the house, or to expose her to as much crap as possible in the hopes that she will develop wicked immunity?

I don’t know the answer to this, having never finished (or started) my doctorate of medicine or disease control or whatever you study to know that stuff. But I do know that I’d better stock up on the baby Tylenol for the winter season because the way it’s panning out, we’re going to be inside alot.

And she should probably stop licking the bathroom counters at the rec centre.