The girls went to our pediatrician for their annual checkups. Dr. B was surprised to see us — it had been so long since she saw us last that she was sure we had moved away. As it goes, I can’t remember the last non-annual visit we made to the pediatrician other than the one in Dec. 2008 to have Chloe’s stitches taken out.
Sure, the girls get sick every so often. But for the past four years, no illness has been severe enough for me to take them in to see the doctor.
Dr. B praised me for taking such great care of my kids. I puffed my feathers and felt proud of this, but then, seeing sick kids in the office and their parents quickly unpuffed. Do I really do something better than these parents? Or is it simply a matter of heredity and environment?
The girls don’t go to school. They do hang out with other kids and fly on airplanes, but I think that avoiding the bacterial/viral breeding grounds (aka schools) helps. We tend to keep good (admittedly not great) food in the house. If the adage “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is true, then by my count, the girls will never, ever have to go to the doctor given their combined rate of a dozen apples a day.
I’ll take some of the praise — I breastfed them until they quit (even though it was a exhausting struggle with BOTH girls), I give them good foods, I make sure they exercise (with Chloe that’s no issue, with the reading, knitting Camille it is), I homeschool, I don’t smoke.
I also don’t freak out about germs. I avoid “anti-bacterial” soap or whatever. There is no Lysol in my house. We eat food that has fallen on the ground (some French lady yelled at me at the train station in France for five minutes until I realized what was upsetting her so.). We wash hands, but not obsessively so. I don’t believe that sterile is best. A healthy dose of germs is good for us!
But, really, the girls have been blessed with great immune systems, and that’s not something I had any choice about.
My vote is that the difference is home schooling. My wife and I are staying much healthier now that we’re both working from home and away from crowded offices. Same thing for schools, day care centers, etc.