Wash your hands!!!!

Our number one phrase these days....So who else out there is terrified of this flu virus sweeping the nation??? Especially with kids who love to touch everything they see, rub their nose with their hands, put their fingers in their mouth.....
I must say I send my kids to school with hand sanitizer in their backpacks and hand wipes in their lunch pails. I've told them "you clean your hands when you go out or come in from any breaks, recess, or lunch". When they get in the car from being picked up I have wipes sitting in one of the cup holders in the back where they are, they each get one and clean their hands.
Usually it's just me getting on them about their hands, now their Dad has joined me.
This morning we all went to Costco and as we're going down an aisle Jr. has his finger sliding across the items as we're walking. "No touching!" And of course as usual there are the testers out which of course they all have to get some. Daddy is putting water in the cart and he sees Jr. playing with 2 toothpicks by the garbage "throw them away!".
At least J is in the cart where he really can't touch anything, well, except for the cart itself!
We make it home, put the stuff away and head out one more time to pick up Mom Jr. from her friends, stop at my Mom's, and then to the video store. Again you hear the comments "Stop touching, come here, J no running, hands off your face!!".
Come home and of course they're starving even after the smoothie they got at the store and eating the testers.
They come in the kitchen to get their lunch that I have put out. "Did you wash your hands?" D looks at me with his big brown eyes..."Did you wash your hands?" Jr. takes off to the bathroom and J is still just staring at me, "DID YOU WASH YOUR HANDS?!?!?"
He mumbles something then Daddy tells him "Go wash your hands right now?!" "What have I been preaching all day to you all?" Mom Jr. just stands there with her hip out to the side and a look on her face like she's tired of hearing it all. I tell her "stand right!" "Well, I already know this, I've heard it before" "And you'll hear it again until you do it!"

Ugh, all we want to do is protect them as much as we can, ultimately knowing they are going to be exposed to whatever other kids and people have when they're at school or anywhere else. We've tried talking to them about the virus, they've heard about it at school and still they just don't see how serious it can be. So Daddy tried the blunt truth, "A girl just died, one day she had what seemed to be a stomach flu and by the next morning she was dead".

Hmm, we can only hope they will use the items we've given to them when we're not around...

Just a Mom hoping they got it, understood it, and will do it................CLEAN YOUR HANDS!!!!