The green machines

Being a parent, you kind of get used to changing nappies, dirty faces and hands, and the constant loads of washing. But when your kids have colds, the never ending stream of green snot seeping out of noses is.... well, it just is gross.

In the last three months, Milly has had six colds. She has two weeks of a snotty nose, sometimes accompanied by a cough, then she is fine for one week before it starts all over again. Two weeks on, one week off. Henry has faired a little better, he has had three colds. His pattern is one week on, three weeks off.

Milly hates having her nose wiped and when she sees an incoming tissue or hanky she wipes her nose with the back of her hand and smears it all over her face. Yuck. Being two years older, Henry now knows when he has a "booger" and asks for it to be wiped away; however, there are times when he also likes to wipe his own "boogers" and his nose wiping skills are similar to those of Milly's - he just smears green slime on his face.

This past week has seen another unsightly green substance added to the mix. Conjunctivitis. So not only are we battling the green slime of the nose, but the green slime from the eyes as well. It wasn't enough that we were greeted each morning by two children with blocked snotty noses and dried up snot smeared on their faces, sometimes in their hair and on their bed sheets, clothes and teddies. No, now we were also greeted with eyes crusted shut, with crusts stuck to eyelashes and puss seeping from their eyes. So now when we do battle, we are armed with tissues and eye drops.

The good news is Henry's eyes have cleared up, but he still has a green, snotty nose. Milly is not fairing as well. Her eyes haven't gotten worse, but they're not looking improved either; plus her nose just keeps producing.

So the war against the green slime continues.