Angry

OK, 'angry' doesn't really cover it. 'Seething with rage' might suffice.

It's taken 24 hours (edit: and three rewrites now) for me to calm down enough to compose this.

So. I have been obliged recently to attend gatherings with my children. At these gatherings is also in attendance a person with her child. This child is usually ill. The last three times we met there he was ill. And I'm not talking about a sniffle. I mean snot dripping from his nose / wet, hacking cough / vomiting.

Now kids get sick. This I understand. But this child is always there sick. And he is not only brought there while he is ill - a place where his people know my four small children will be, plus two other small children, one of whom is under one year - but he is allowed free reign. He is allowed to roam about, touching the other children, drinking from other's cups, handling and mouthing all the toys.

I don't know what everyone else does - it's their business, I don't care - but I keep my kids home when they are ill! Mine do NOT go out of my home until they are completely well.

I have even given special consideration to this very child, keeping myself - if I'm ill - or my children home because this child has a susceptibility to respiratory bugs! And yet he is dragged out when unwell and thrust into the midst of my children (and two others) heedlessly.

Well, not any more.

My children are almost never sick. My oldest, Boy, has been ill maybe eight times in his life. And that's everything - sniffles, colds, one stomach virus. And my kids are not cloistered in this house all the time. We go to the Wal Marts, to the park, to my OB's office, the pediatrician (where we actually sit in the sick child room because it's larger).

The entire brood has been very ill THREE times since October. Each time exhibiting symptoms 24-72 hours after exposure to this child who was ill.

Last time it was coughing, snotting, fevers. Days and days of four children feeling so bad they didn't stir from the couch. Now it's violent vomiting. Evil Genius Husband I have been up all night; changing sheets; soothing frightened, trembling, weak babies; scrubbing up puke.

That's when I wasn't hanging over the toilet myself.

Oh, yeah. This child is thoughtlessly brought around me, the chick who's almost eight months pregnant.

(EDIT: tonight we were up cleaning diarrhoea. O joy. None of us has slept in 3 days.)

Well it ends here. My children will no longer attend gatherings while that child is there, nor go where he is. If we are there and he is brought to the same location, I and my kids will immediately leave.

I hate to go to this extreme, but I cannot have this keep happening, and I cannot come up with anything else to do. Now I just have to figure out how to express my concerns and inform the person who holds these gatherings as he means a great deal to me and my children and I don't want to hurt his feelings.

I'm thinking of availing myself of the help and advice of the other two mothers who's children are exposed.

I want to stress that this has nothing watever to do with the child per se. He can't help being ill (one assumes) but if he is to be brought there while contagious, with absolutely no regard to my or my children's health, then we shall simply have to stay away.

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Oh, before anyone points this out: yes, I am aware that I'm in for a rude awakening when Boy goes to school next year. I'm sure many parents send their kids to school sick. I also know that simple, normal exposure in a large group of kids will result in more illness. I'm not entirely stupid. This vector, however, I can control ... and I intend to.