As any new first-year teacher knows, kids love to spread their love. By love, I mean that germy kind of love... the gift that keeps on giving. I know when I was a first-year teacher, I seemed to live with a runny nose, sore throat, and a headache. I couldn't believe how often I had a cold or strep throat or the stomach bug. Whatever little bit of goodness those kids could pass to me, I seemed to get. This year, I am watching a first-year teacher on my team experience the same thing. I know it doesn't help her to say, we have all been there....but we have. We know the feeling of, if a student within a forty-five-mile radius is sick, you get sick too.
Now the same situation of love spreading occurs when you are a parent. Do you remember the first year of your precious baby's life? Now think back to your life during that time? Aside from being sleep deprived, you probably constantly had a running nose, a cold, a sore throat or worse. I know with my oldest it wasn't that bad but it coincided with my early years of teaching, so who knows where all the sickness came from. Now my second spread the most germy love. That boy was sick so much, in fact, I had to stop working because of it. The first time I had the flu in many years was when he was 3 months old.... he spread his little germy love right to me... I was his favorite after all.
This spreading of the germy love can extend to you if your a new aunt or uncle too. At my house, we called it the kiss of death...a bit of hyperbole for sure. When my nephew was born (pre-kids for my house), he had the stomach bug and yes you guessed it, he shared that with EVERYONE. The same thing happened to my mother in law's boyfriend, he came to meet us for the first time and my youngest spread his little germy stomach bug to him. They could barely make it back to Florida! We still talk about that and they have been married for 12 years now.
Why was this on my mind? Why did I decide to write this blog post? You are probably thinking the Corona Virus was the basis for the post. Nope, someone either my first-year teacher friend, my own kids or my students shared their little germy love with me. Nothing major, no fever, just a little cold coming on but it made me pause and think about spreading the germy love. It is just the gift that keeps on giving.... now go wash your hands!
I've been there. I find the same thing often happens when you change schools. I know the germs in one school probably aren't that different from the germs is another school not too far away, but it seems to happen every time.
ReplyDeleteI hope you feel better soon. One of the best pieces of advice I got in my first year of teaching was "If you are sick on Thursday, you are sick on Friday". It was a colleagues way of telling me not to rush back to work too quickly. I have since shared it with many others, especially new teachers.
I always referred to my reading groups as "the dangerous germ pool" and built up quite an immunity with their assistance.
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