Germ-A-Phobe

 

I have a major pet peeve. Ok, so I have A LOT of pet peeves, but this one in particular. I HATE it when people touch Joey's hands. Not that I don't like people interacting with him, or telling me how cute he is...smile...or even holding him, but he immediately puts his hands in his mouth after. When they grab his hands, I feel like someone may as well swab him down with a variety of contagious diseases and ship him off to the NICU. I'm sure everyone knows that he was a preemie...but on top of that, he was too little to get a flu shot and we were told to be VERY careful with him during cold season. I think I may have insulted the doctor when I laughed at him after he told us that. Two school aged boys, a baby and I am supposed to be careful with germs? During the winter, our house sounds like a tuberculosis ward.

When Joey was a week old, he had to have a spinal tap because he had pneumonia. There is something about seeing your baby strapped down to a table with a huge needle coming at him that sort of...I don't know...changes you...makes you hyper-sensitive to germs. Coupled with a mom who is a germ-a-phobe, and you make a physciatrists dream.

Whenever I see people grabbing his hands, I get this sort of moving image in my head. I imagine putting my finger and their mouth, saying COOCHIE COOCHIE COO! The imagined look of shock makes me laugh out loud.