Gabi Loves her Kind Sign !Have you ever met a helicopter mom. No ? Well let me introduce myself , my name is Jami and I hover. You can meet me at any given moment while out with my kids, Clorex Wipes, travel size lysol and full bottle of hand sanitizer ready to do battle with any microscopic nasties that find their way in the general direction of my 2 beautiful babies. You're laughing, I can hear you, but I have a mission and that is to keep my 2 kiddos as healthy as possible. With the advent of "Super-bugs" , Swine Flu, and other assorted baby loving germs I have to be ready to do battle at any given moment, a germaphobe's work never ends.
Now maybe you think I'm a little nutty, but I assure you wasn't always this way . In fact, in a time before babies and husbands and coupons I worked in the belly of the beast, an Emergency Room. I have seen all variety of disease; contagious, congenital, mysterious, lethal. I can assure all you doubters that your babies, and mine, are ill equiped to do wage war with these nasties. You can pump them full of breastmilk, probiotics, even antibiotics and sometimes the germs just win, it's sad but sometimes avoidable. Let me explain.
I came across the website mamabears.com and literally jumped for joy ! The biggest culprit in the spread of disease are, our hands. People use their hands for all variety of things from tying a shoe to picking a nose, and pray tell, how often do those hard working digits get cleaned before pinching the rosey cheeks of my baby or fondeling her pudgy hands ..not often enough . Mamabears created these great "kind signs" to hang from a stroller, carseat, or any infant carrying device that read ( Your Germs are Too Big for Me , Please Don't Touch) . It's a nice way to say "BACK OFF" to the kindly stranger magnetically drawn , hands outstreatched, to touch my cooing baby at the grocery store .
If you wouldn't let your baby lick the bottom of a shoe, the packages of raw meat in the butcher's case, the money in the cash drawer, or the handle of a grocery cart you NEED this sign. Up until 90 days your baby's immune system is "open" . Think of it like opening the gas on your oven, drier, and heater in your house, lighting a match and watch it all go up in a ball of flames. Pathogens can easily travel from the nose, to the blood to the brain in an infant under 90 days old. Strangers touch all the things I just mentioned ( maybe worse) and then they are touching the gateways to your baby's insides ; the eyes, nose mouth and hands.
So if you have a baby, know someone who's having a baby, or you are a helicopter mom like me and plan to hang a Mamabear's Kind Sign around the neck of your 2 year old at Disneyland than scoop up one , they make an excellent gift to any baby you care about.
Mamabears has been super generous in offering TEN Kind Signs in your choice of Blue, Pink or Orange ( my favorite since it is nice and bold and really let's that stranger know to look "with their eyes" ) as a Giveaway on the site. If you can't wait to see if you've won then hurry over to Mamabears and scoop up a Kind Sign or two and use coupon code POORMOM for free shipping on your order.
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Jami
With the H1N1 scare this year and all the vaccine hoopla I went a bit germaphobe and googled how to teach kids about germs at the start of the school year. Found a new program called Germ Smarts for kids and got it for home and for our child’s preschool. It was a bit pricey but has probably saved us hundreds as the kids have not been bringing home every germ on the planet from preschool and we are no longer playing the “pass the germ” game around the house! Simple program but huge difference in staying healthy for everyone.
ReplyDeleteI used a Baby Bjorn infant carrier for one child and a sling for the other and this kept my babies close to me and literally within my safe arms away from strangers.
ReplyDeleteI only used strollers for being out all day walking city streets as a tourist and for part of the time we were at Disney World.
Keeping the baby close to the mom keeps the strangers from touching the baby. I can't believe people actually reach in and touch the baby in a stroller? Does that really happen in real life?
I hear why you are afraid of people spreading germs. I hope you let your toddlers and kids over aged two touch dirt and play in sandboxes. My brother built a large sandbox for my kids with a lid to keep the stray cats from using it as a litterbox. That was the extent of my fear about what bad thing could happen to my kids in a sandbox.
My kids are 12 and 9 now. I bought our first Purell when the H1N1 broke out last fall but that didn't keep me and my 12 year old from getting it. My husband dodged it by being away for a week on business...
While I can understand sometimes you don't want every stranger who comes strolling by to insist on handling your baby, one of the worst things you can do for your child's health is militantly keep them away from every possible germ. We have immune systems for a reason - we learn to fight illness by being exposed to it. My daughter went to Disney World when she was 12 months old and we handed her off to every costumed character who held their arms out. She had a blast, we have great memories. She's 15 years old now and gets sick a lot less often than most of her peers.
ReplyDeletePumping your kids full of antiobiotics is a great way to assure they will never be able to fight off an illness on their own.
This is quite possibly the most ridiculous product I have EVER seen.
ReplyDeleteThe rise of superbugs has come alongside the rise of germaphobes wielding antibacterial products left and right, making the regular ol' bugs we already had die off and leave the superbugs in their wake.
Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us!
But you do realize that if you try to isolate your kids from all the germs floating around, chances are, it _will get sick_ much more easily? In my eyes, this will cause much more harm than do good. If you don't appreciate the stranger or obnoxius neighbor touching your kids: tell them so, to their face. No signs needed.
ReplyDeleteSo long,
Corinna
Of course superbugs are more prevalent partly due to our overuse of antibiotics and antibacterials. If we kill 99.7% of disease causing organisms, the strongest are left to breed.
ReplyDeleteAnd you yourself state that "... up to 90 days..." but are discussing hanging the sign on your 2 year old. That is considerably older than 90 days. That would be 3 months. If you're at Disneyland, I think your 2 year old is going to get exposed to more than people wanting to touch her/him. They have their own kids. What about Mickey? Does he have to stay away too?
I teach the products of helicopter parents. They are a very fragile breed.
My grandson? He actually does lick the bottom of his shoe while in his top-of-the-line carseat (the really really really important stuff I don't do any messing around), he has managed to lick the headlight covers of my car in the rain, he eats snow, he manages to get an incredible array of gross stuff in his mouth, despite my vigilance.
He hasn't had so much as a cold in well over a year. He's only 3 and a half, and I literally can't remember when he even had a runny nose last. Strong immune system. Lots of opportunities to fortify it.
Back from Vacation and a broken computer and a few nasty comments ..lovely.
ReplyDeleteJust an FYI , my almost 3 year old has been sick 3 times ( once a year is good for me) and my infant 2 times . Obviously there is an smidge of puffery in the article that was missed but the reality is that before I was a mom and a coupon blogger I was knee deep in MRSA and VRSA Urine, pus and mucus working ER . I know allll about that stuff first hand as does DH who still "works in the trenches" . The whole milk maid theory is completely missunderstood by the public and actually getting sick isn't required to build up a strong immune system. So I choose the not getting sick route as much as possible. However my 2 year old practically made out with Daisy , hugged every character and "gasp" used public bathrooms . Not even a sniffle :)