What I Wish My Kids Wore on the First Day of School

I simply don't think they make hazmat suits in kid sizes.
If so, I would have bought several on one of my 75 August trips to Target.

Every year.  Every darn year the same thing happens.

My children spend the entire school year carefully building up their immune systems.
They take every opportunity to touch snot, invisible germs, and unspecified slime.
They touch everything in their sight and then promptly stick their fingers in their mouths.

They are walking examples of how to test immune systems.  They practice this throughout the school year.  By May their immune systems are as tough as nails. The bubonic plague couldn't penetrate their systems (yes, I'm knocking on wood).

Summer comes and their immune systems are not tested.  They expose themselves to summer air, ocean breezes, and air conditioning. No exposure to viruses. None.  They are seemingly sequestered from any and all germs.  We must live in a bubble.  Their immune systems are essentially left vulnerable once again.

This is the perfect recipe for the onset of September's inevitable avalanche of return-to-school illnesses.

Is this happening in your house or is this a unique phenomenon in mine?

It starts with a phone call from the school.
Before you answer the phone, you stare at it and will it to stop ringing.
Your Jedi skills need work so, of course, the phone keeps ringing.
When you answer it, you hope against hope this call is about your need to sign some form, volunteer for some activity, or perhaps the school office just wants to see how you're doing. Yes, it's a ridiculous thought, but you can hope.

Instead you learn what you already knew when the phone rang.
You have a child who is vomiting in the school office.  They want you to come get your child.

Imagine that. They don't want vomiting children at school. Total bummer because you don't want vomiting children in your house.

Here's the thing about calls from the school telling you your child is sick:  the school wants you to act like a responsible adult, drop everything, pick up your germ magnet, and lovingly nurse it back to health.

Here's the thing about receiving calls from the school office telling you your child is barfing:  you momentarily consider acting like the school has the wrong number, you then realize this is ultimately the school's fault since clearly your child got sick there, and you want to immaturely shriek "finders keepers," and hang up the phone.

Once you realize the inevitable, and obediently retrieve your obviously ill child, you can focus on the one person to blame for this...your spouse  precautionary measures to keep sick child from contaminating others. This is, of course, a lost cause. Soon every child under your roof along with your spouse is either vomiting or producing amazingly viscous mucous.

Within days the children and your pathetic husband are nursed back to health, and you breath a sigh of relief...and then you sneeze...then your head starts hurting...then you ache all over...and then you know.

You know hazmat suits in kid sizes is a brilliant idea.