Surrounded By Kid Germs
Sick of being cooped up and facing a three-day weekend, my husband and I loaded up the kids yesterday and took them to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City. We’d kind of been homebodies this winter and once we were out and about in a very kid-centered location, I remembered why we hadn’t been sick very much this year and why it’s sometimes a good idea to stay home a lot during the winter.
I’m not a total germaphobe, but when you can look around and see the drippy noses, it’s hard not to feel like you’re going to be coming down with a cold within a few hours.
And of course, a lot of exhibits are interactive, which means hundreds of kids have been touching the same pegs and handles and balls and paintbrushes and blocks and railings. Everywhere I looked, I saw germs.
Then we saw a child eating a snack out of a baggie while playing with giant Light-Bright pegs. That girl is pretty much guaranteed to either pick up an illness or spread one.
At one point I had something in my eye, but I refused to get my fingers anywhere near my eyes because I would be waking up with pink eye in the morning, guaranteed. I had to just work around it.
The good thing is that the kids had a blast, we stayed for over 3 hours, which was us putting up a pretty decent fight against cabin fever. I’ll just have to do a bit of this over the next day or two:
Do you cringe going out into kid-heavy environments? You can’t stay in all the time but man, if we all stay well this coming week I’ll be amazed! —Erin