Cover your mouth when you cough. Actually, on second thought, don’t bother.

When the kids were little, I used to be kind of a psycho about exposing them to kids who were sick.

If  Number 1 and 2 were sick, I would take every precaution to keep them  separated from Number 3.

My friends knew to cancel a playdate if they were planning on coming over and their kids had even a hint of sniffle.

The craziness continued with Numbers 4 and 5.

And 6.

The sick child would be quarantined.

The other kids would be instructed to protect themselves, and to stay away from the infected one.

If one of the uninfected kids got a hold of something the sick child had come into contact with, everything suddenly became a slow motion scene from a movie.

Healthy kid grabs the sick kid’s sippy cup and moves cup toward mouth.

Seeing this, Mom sprints across the room.

And jumps.

She dives through the air, reaching out with one hand, yelling “NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…..”

I would just about tackle him or her, grab the contaminated item, and start fumigating.

And do you know what all of that did?

Nothing.

No matter what preventative measure I took, every child eventually ended up getting sick.

The only thing I succeeded in doing was extending the overall period of time we had someone sick in the house.

Having one sick kid is bad enough.

And don’t get me wrong, I feel bad for the kids when they feel bad.

No one wants to see their kid sick or in pain.

But no one wants to get up in the middle of the night either.

Multiple times.

If you have a kid who has more than just a cold, chances are that you have 2 nights of really shitty sleep ahead of you.

When you have 7 kids with more than just a cold?

Well, when they get it one-at-a-time,you are looking at a solid 2 weeks of waking up at midnight.

And 1:30.

And 3:00.

And 4:30.

So now what do I do to prevent the spread?

Pretty much nothing.

They are all going to get it.

No matter what.

I might as well concentrate this shit into as short a period of time as possible.

In gym class in high school, around this time of year, it would be the track and field portion of the curriculum.

I remember spending a ridiculous amount of time practicing relay transitions.

Passing that metallic baton to the next person in the relay.

I always wondered why that skill was so important to learn.

And master.

Now I know.

It was just a metaphor.

Because right now we are passing the coughing baton around in this house.

My transitions used to be really slow.

I was dropping the shit out of that baton.

But now that we are 18 months into kid number 7, well…

We are a well-oiled machine.

I’ve gotten our overall time for sleepless nights down to about 8 days.

Give me another year or two, and I should be down to less than a week.

PLEASE TAKE ONE SECOND TO VOTE FOR ME!!!

  All you need to do is click on the banner above to register a vote for me! 

 You can vote one time every 24 hours from every computer and cell phone! THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! I really appreciate your support!

 Check out and “like” the not-your-average-mom.com facebook page!

Follow me on Twitter @mom_not_average