Last year my back-to-school gripe was about the endless forms we had to fill out. Parent homework, if you will. As the year progressed, I weighed in on the subject of standardized testing ... not so favorably, I might add. I blogged about the crazy grading system used in Wake County Schools, where a 92 is a B.

This year what struck me was…a sinus infection. I've come to believe that the best thing our schools could do for our kids (and their poor, defenseless Moms) would be to hand out a prescription for antibiotics along with the de rigeur agenda book at the beginning of the school year. I'm starting to think that instead of sending our kids into an environment for learning, we are dropping them into a petri dish full of nasty vermin and viruses. And like the dutiful children carrying home those endless forms, they carry them home to share with their Moms.

So, just when you start to get into that rhythm of "normalcy," you end up with a sick kid who you have to take to that delightful place they call the "Sick Waiting Room" at the pediatrician's office. Talk about a petri dish! It is hard to get out of that place without feeling like you need one of those showers people get after they've been exposed to radioactive material like in Silkwood. There should be separate sick waiting rooms…a separate one for kids (and their parents) old enough to not spew snot and spit all over every available surface. Survive the waiting room. Get that kid patched up and back in school, and then the other one comes down with it, only a little worse. The same teens who are sometimes reluctant to share their feelings, have no problem being extremely open and generous with their germs. The absence notes are written. The homework is made up. 

And then it starts. First it's just that dragging around feeling that you don't have any energy. Then comes the denial. "Oh, I've just been running around too much. I need to take it easy." Next thing you know, your head is filled with overwhelming quantities of fluids that drip and ooze in disgusting ways. And then the cough starts. And each cough gets a little "chunkier." And finally the prospect of driving the kids to school becomes practically impossible.

There's no one around to call the doctor for you. There's no one to drive you there. And the whole waiting room at the Urgent Care is a "Sick Witing Room." And there aren't even really any precious "days off" for a sick Mom. No one fixes chicken noodle soup for you. You're it, Mom. 

Even though the antibiotics are not working fast enough for me…it's been almost 20 hours and I still have a fever…I was confronted with a wonderful reality that made me a little less resentful of my sickness. I was driving to the middle school to pick Rory up after a meeting. As I stopped at a stoplight, I watched three young teens standing on the corner talking. Before the three parted, two in one direction and one in the other, there were hugs. And I thought about the fact that we weren't so open about hugging when I was a teen. I love the lack of self-consciousness in the physical expression of feelings between our teens. I wonder how meaningful it is to kids who might not get hugs at home that they can get them from their friends. My friend Debbie, the PTA queen of Boca (and I mean that with incredible admiration…this is a truly selfless individual who gives her time freely to help the schools), aptly pointed out, "What about lice?" OK. That's gross. And that's a potential negative. But I think I am willing to risk the passing of germs and even of crawling head vermin for the benefit of hugs amongst teens.

Diane appears Wednesdays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Diane on her blog Live and Let Di.