I’m not exactly sure how to process all that is Coronavirus. It’s a mixed bag of feelings, especially as a mama trying to protect my babies and also as a reporter constantly talking about it from every point of view. Every social media post is full of everyone’s opinions and I’m bombarded from every angle.
You know how I know I’ll survive the hysteria, the lack of toilet paper and the infectious germs? Because I grew up swimming in Lake Lanier in the 80’s when there were no regulations for my neighbor’s dumping their chicken house waste into the water. I’m basically embalmed already.
I know I’ll survive because somehow I have managed, so far, to keep my three kids alive even though they touch EVERY SINGLE SURFACE POSSIBLE in every public restroom. No matter how many times I say, “Don’t TOUCH ANYTHING” in the public bathroom, they insist on practically rolling in the floor and rubbing their naked bottoms on unspeakable portions of every ceramic installation within a five-mile radius.
And SOMEHOW, against all odds, my one year old survived even though she LICKED the HAND RAIL on a MARTA train last fall. I apologize, as a professional reporter for using the dreaded all caps situation here, but I do not know any other way to convey the amount of disgust I felt. As many times as I pulled her away from the seat, she continued to use the seat rail as a teether. The same seat that all of Atlanta’s population, bathed and unbathed, used as a means of getting to and from their destinations, is the same seat that my precious, beautiful, innocent daughter decided to put her mouth all over. How can I keep my babies safe? Can I germ-x the whole world? But, somehow, she lived.
I truly believe in sanitizing as best I can, but I’m sincerely hoping someone can explain to me why they are buying Lysol wipes in bulk. First of all, how many do you really need? How dirty are you that 25 containers of Lysol won’t do the job and you need 25 more? And secondly, no amount of disinfecting wipes will keep my kid from licking the front tire of my car for some weird reason. I could spend hours disinfecting my home for days on end, or just realize kids are dirty little things with nasty habits. As soon as I wipe all my tables and chairs down, there’s gonna be that one kid who uses the table as a booger place-holder. I would say this may be why schools are closed, but, let’s be honest, kids have always done this.
When my first kid was in pre-k, her preschool teachers had a conference with me. They used polite words about how they needed to have a chat with her almost daily about her “habits.” I don’t remember the polite way they tried to phrase it, but basically my kid was nasty. She would lick the trash can, the basketball, the bathroom sink, the filing cabinet… she had to touch and lick EVERYTHING. Apparently not all kids do this? She was my first, so I assumed they just all were that nasty. Nope. Just mine. Or maybe nobody else is admitting it.
A friend of mine recently commented that her boy does this and maybe it’s a boy thing. Nope. My nasty child was a girl. She literally licked anything and everything. I thank this for her amazing immune system, as she rarely, if ever, gets sick.
No, I’m not really worried about the infectious disease we can possibly catch. What I am going crazy about is the hysteria.
It reminds me of Y2K. I was in college when they thought the world was going to end due to a date change. Of course, my parents stocked up with enough cans so that we could eat beans for the next five years, if needed. My dad made me pack my entire college dorm because we probably “wouldn’t be able to get back.” I’m hopeful that coronavirus allows us all to “get back” as quickly as Y2K did. In that instance, it was literally the next day.
Now we are seeing the same madness at the grocery stores. I truly wish someone could explain why everyone is buying water in bulk. My friend asked one lady why she had so much in her cart and she replied that she, “heard water would be turned off.” Why in the world would anyone turn off the water? Is there no common sense left?
A lady in my mom’s FB group posted this question: “Does anyone need any baby wipes? There was only two left at Walmart today, so I bought them.” Hmm… o.k. I’ll bite. “Don’t YOU need them?” I asked. Nope. She did not. She has no baby, and no need for them. And somehow she thinks she’s HELPING the situation? I don’t understand. Does she not see the irony? Coincidentally I WILL need baby wipes soon and when I go to get some and find none at the store, Lord help me if I don’t bless this woman out in my mind.
But I digress, the point here is that I am unable to really “social distance” myself when I live with five people, three of whom are absolute walking germs. When your child sneezes directly in your face, on purpose, because it’s “funny,” you know there’s really no hope. When you have no choice but to wipe a baby’s snot with your own hands and wipe it on your jeans because you have access to positively nothing else (hint: toilet paper crisis of 2020), you basically know that your chances of survival are slim.
And yet, we all survived. Pretty sure we will survive now.
