Cross-pollination-All the cool kids are doing it.

Today I am super proud to be cross-pollinating with Sarah of the fantastic Blog
The Crazy Baby Mama.
I flippin' love this girl.
She is smart, crass, and an all around bad ass.
I was so thrilled when she invited me to swap Blogs with her.
I suddenly felt like the cool girl at school had walked up
and asked me to sit with her during lunch.

If you need me, I'll be over at her place lookin' super awesome.

I proudly hand the mic over to Sarah! The Crazy Baby Mama!

Germ Warfare

Some folks are scared of spiders. Others are terrified of wide open spaces. Some shudder at the thought of public speaking, while others have nightmares about clowns. I am afraid of germs. Like, "don't you dare touch my child unless you've washed your hands with boiling water and antibacterial soap, and have used a paper towel when turning the bathroom door knob, or I will kill you," afraid. I've always been this way, and no amount of therapy or heavy drugs is going to change this. Since taking my kids outside to the grocery store is already hard enough, as you can imagine, going to the pediatrician's office is a test in heroics. And, to make matters more challenging, while some doctors offices have separate rooms to segregate the sick from the healthy, our pediatricians office only offers a narrow center divider, with colour-coded chairs on either side. Blue if you're sick. Orange if you're healthy.

Yeah, like the germs give a shit where you sit. Trust me, they will find you: The last time Faye had a 'well baby' visit, she came down with Roseola, and the time before that, she caught a nasty cold.

In other words, going to the pediatrician's office is like enduring an intense session of immersion therapy.

The good news is, Dr. S is one of those rare pediatricians who is almost always available to offer advice over the phone. Whether it's in the quiet moments just before dawn Faye has spiked a fever, or during the hustle bustle of hectic office hours and Benjamin has green eye gunk, Dr. S is usually reachable. And this is great because 9 times out of 10, we save ourselves a trip to pathogen paradise.

Anyway, almost every time we've been in the exam room with him, he's taken a call from another worried parent. I love this for two reasons:

1. Usually I'm the freak-show clusterfuck calling him to ask whether or not I should take Faye to the ER because she a handful of dirt, or whether or not its normal for
Benjamin's umbilical cord to smell like dog fart, so fair is fair.

2. I'm like a gluttonous squirrel, happily collecting scattered medical factoids to store away for the future, and you never know what you might pick up when pretending not to listen: For instance, if your child has rainbow poop, he probably cracked open a tub or two of play-dough and went to town. But don't worry. While not officially edible, play-dough won't kill you.

But, one afternoon, while parked on the couch with my boobs out feeding Benjamin, I saw a terrifying add for Lysol Disinfectant Wipes. In it, a cherubic child innocently reaches for a cordless phone that is shown to be literally teeming with all matter of bacterial, viral, and fungal life. Meanwhile, an ominous voice intones against the dangers of unclean household surfaces. (In other words, "unless you go out and spend your money on Lysol Disinfectant Wipes, you will all die horrible deaths, bitches.")

Well, when Benjamin and I went in to get his goopy eye checked out, as always, Dr. S's phone trilled, and he answered it with his patented, cheery greeting:

"Hi! It's Dr. S!"

Pause.

"Well, you can give infant Tylenol for a fever, but if he's lethargic or extremely fussy, or his temp goes over 102 F, we want to see him."

Another Pause.

"Yeah, that's normal. But if you can't wake him up, or he misses more than one feeding, let us know. Ok?"

And Another Pause.

"Ok. Take care!"

(See? You listen, you learn.)

Dr. S hung up the phone and came back over to us. Peering down at Benjamin's crusty eye, he grabbed a tissue paper, went over to the sink, turned on the faucet, and doused the tissue with water.

And suddenly, I no longer saw the sturdy, capable, healing hands of Dr. S. I saw instead, an all access pass for the voracious germs living happily on the phone to my sweet baby boy's vulnerable mucus membranes. Granted, Dr. S didn't touch my sons grossly infected eye with his bare hand -- but still, in my paranoid, cracked out universe, I imagined all sorts of worst case scenarios involving Ocular Herpes.

So, a week later, when we returned for Benjamin's 2 month check up, I came prepared. Armed with several prepackaged Lysol Disinfectant Wipes, I waited while the nurse took all of Benjamin's necessary height, weight and head circumference measurements. As soon as she left the room, I strapped Benjamin in his pink Snap-N-Go, and then, with the speed of a Ninja, I attacked the phone. Midway through my frenzied war on germs, the doorknob turned, and Dr. S walked into the exam room. Like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, I was frozen with shock and shame, but when Dr. S saw me in this tableau of OCD germaphobia, his eyes twinkled, and he laughed. After all, by now he knows who he is dealing with.