when your kid is sick...

My kids get sick all the time.  Getting tubes in their ears helped a lot, but with all the other kids' germs, they still seem to always be sick.

I have been to the doctor's office many, many times and the ER once or twice, too.  I have also taken advantage of calling the nurses at my doctor's office whenever I can.  No matter who I am talking to about my kids, they always ask roughly the same questions.

Now keep in mind, I am, on a good day, pretty scatter brained and have been known to forget my kids birthdays.  But when my kids are sick, I tend to quietly freak out, and that makes me even more forgetful.  So, to try to keep the Department of Human Services Child Division from being called due to my mental wariness, I have developed a checklist of sorts to use when my kids are sick. 

It's pretty simple really.  Just a long thin piece of paper (I try not to use a receipt or the backs of utility bills-that leads to other problems), with the following:

• Day, date and time (amazing how easily I forget this!)
• Symptom: fever (the number and how it was taken), vomiting, pain, rash, cough, runny nose, etc.
• Any medicine I gave (type, exactly the dosage-they always ask for this)
• Any food or drink they have/have not kept down 

I keep a running record of this on the same paper if possible and just take it with or refer to it on the phone.  This is especially helpful when more than one kid is sick at the same time.  With my sick checklist, I sound like I have it all together.  Even if I can't find where I parked my car *smile*.