Germ warfare

I believe I mentioned in my last post something about signing Zoey's latest Ouch Report when I picked her up at daycare Tuesday. This is nothing new. I think that if someone were to pay me a dime for every Ouch Report I've signed this year, I could retire tomorrow. But Ms. Mandi did pull me aside, briefly, and tell me she had to have a "discussion" with my daughter about the importance of wearing a band-aid on what was the large patch of road rash on her elbow.

Zoey has never been a fan of the band aids. Not sure why. She'll plaster them all over her large stuffed Care Bear, but she'd rather bleed out than wear one herself.

So anyway, Ms. Mandi apparently referenced 'miserable germs' in her lecture, even pulling out a story book about said miserable germs, to get Zoey to wear a band aid after her scrape. These 'mizz-ubble germs' are pretty much all Zoey has wanted to discuss since I brought her home Tuesday, after she finished throwing her marathon hissy fit over the bounce house.

She told me, in no uncertain terms, that mizz-ubble germs are large creatures similar to the monsters she imagines lurking under her bed, that creep in to your body uninvited and make you very, very sick. She then pointed out to me (hand gestures and all) that the best way to prevent the invasion of mizz-ubble germs was to 1. wash your hands and 2. wear a band aid on your bleeding owies.

While I am completely on board with any preschool lecture that gets my kid to wash her hands more often, my mistake was pointing out that germs are so teeny tiny, you can't even see them! My point was to steer the conversation away from make believe monsters under the bed. What Zoey heard is 'germs are waiting for you everywhere so be afraid, little girl'.

She refuses to use the bathroom by herself anymore and looks terrified of the toilet.

I am not sure how to do damage control on this topic. I want her to wash her hands. I want her to wear band aids over bleeding wounds. I do not want her to have nightmares about tiny, growling germs that will make her sick. Information is such a fine line with this age group.

Maybe this points toward a career in microbiology. Maybe it's the start of OCD. Time will tell.