WARNING: Keep away from children.

This is an appropriate title for today's post on two levels.

On the first level, it's time I confessed that I have a problem. It's a problem with grocery bags. I can't seem to remember to recycle them.

I bring them home after each shopping trip, and after each shopping trip, I wad them up and store them in the locked cabinet under the kitchen sink, along with the cleaning fluids and the other stuff I don't want Meg getting into. And then, with the best of intentions to take them with me the next time I go shopping and drop them in the recycling bin, I instead forget them and leave them under the sink, adding to them when I come home with a new load of groceries. Most recently, this went on for several months before I finally realized that I had to do something. The cycle had to be broken!

So yesterday, I opened up the cabinet and pulled out bags. And pulled out bags. And pulled out some more bags. Meg helped by spreading them all over the kitchen floor as I extracted them.

Once they were all out, I let Meg play in them for a moment. I know, I know: every single one of those bags has a warning on it that says it's not a toy. But there were literally hundreds of these things. Meg took one look at all of them and just... dove in. Like it was one of those wading areas filled with balls that they have at Chuck E. Cheese. So I let her enjoy it for a moment.

Then she helped to bring me bags as we bundled them up. We filled up four grocery bags with crumpled up grocery bags--and I mean, we stuffed those four bags full. All four of them are now residing in my car, where I will see them every time I help Meg into or out of her car seat. This will include my next trip to the grocery store, by which time I expect to be so sick of seeing them and having them in my way, that I will hasten to the recycling bin with great joy and gladness.

Okay, now the second reason why this post is titled "Keep away from children:" currently, I am working to keep Meg away from other children. Yesterday we learned from our pediatrician that she has something called the Coxsackie virus, also known as hand-foot-and-mouth disease. Basically, it's a 7-10 day virus that causes a fever and a rash on the hands, feet and inside the mouth. It's not serious, except for the fact that the lesions inside the mouth are quite painful and can cause the child to want to avoid food and drink. Hence, there can be a risk of dehydration. However, our excellent pediatrician has Meg on a strict regimen of Motrin alternating with Tylenol to keep the pain down. So far, Meg is eating some fruit on occasion, drinking milk and juice sometimes (though sometimes it hurts even to suck on a cold bottle), and, perhaps most importantly, giving us a sufficent number of wet diapers to show that she's not dehydrated yet! We are so thankful to God for these evidences of his grace.

But even while our girl hangs in there physically (and really doesn't act sick most of the time), she remains highly contagious. (Most adults are quite immune to the virus, but not so with other kiddos.) So no church nursery for her this weekend. And if you see us walking down the street while you're out playing with your children, well, we won't be offended if you turn and run the other way!