Here I sit in front of a laptop screen with kid’s fingerprints all over it thanks to the Smartboard in Ellie’s classroom encouraging learning in the form of hand smears.

A few minutes ago, I found myself repeating a sentence I wish I didn’t have to.

Me: There are three necessities when it comes to hand washing;

1)      Water

2)      Soap

3)      Towel

Ever wonder what the most repeated sentence in the English language as uttered by a mother of three?

Did you wash your hands?

I guess I’m confused, deflated and completely dumbfounded as where to go from here.

Did you wash your hands? I can expect a myriad of responses. Sometimes a nod and a quick sprint in the other direction so I can’t actually check for peanut butter smears or banana string and signs of recently dampened skin. Sometimes, it’s a “yes” and jazz hands flashed in my direction, brimming with “go ahead, I dare you to ask me” confidence, which is really the only sign of a child who has actually washed their hands.

What baffles me is when I send a child to the bathroom to wash, hearing the water run and me following up with “Did you wash your hands?” only to be moaned at, “Oh Mom” and back they go to actually wash. What were they doing in there? I think they have a stop-watch and time themselves while pretending to wash, knowing the exact amount of time it should take to go through the motions of lathering up, rinsing and drying. Wouldn’t it make more sense just to wash? I mean you’re in the room, you’ve turned on the tap, does uncrossing your huffed elbows to pump one measly dollop of fragrant fizz really drain you that much? Why can’t kids use their genius for good instead of evil? Why can’t they remember washing, emptying entire bottles of foam soap when we first brought it home because the smell was so intoxicating and the suds in the sink resembled melted marshmallows?

Sometimes I send them to the bathroom, I don’t hear the water running but when they come out to be checked, they’re quick to let me smell their hands. This one stumps me. I can smell tropical passion fruit antibacterial foam soap, hell, the neighbours can smell its potency but why no water?

Kid: Oh, I just rubbed soap on so you would think I washed them.

Has it really come to this? We’re now just coming up with ways to get around the actual exercise of cleansing and opting only to try to appease the germ warden?

It can take up to three rounds of coercing to get this right.

Ellie will often come flying out of the bathroom dripping water from her elbows, shirt cuffs saturated, waving her hands in my face, flicking me with foam remnants and buckets of water, proudly demonstrating she used soap, rinsed but forgot the oh so important towel element.

I understand why they are confused. This whole sanitizer thing has thrown a wrench in an otherwise flawless arrangement with the germs.

We received a note home from preschool last year discussing hand sanitizer and how they would simply not allow it due to the high alcohol content, sniffers who had succumb to the fumes, theft, pyramid building with the empties, who knows.

A couple of weeks later, we received a follow up notice mandating that all preschools use sanitizer before and after snack.

Hmmmmm

Some kids in the girl’s classes have their own bottle attached to their lunch bags. I bet they make Disney character bottles that match. This business opportunity is likely sitting on a factory conveyor belt as I type.

Is it me or are we just not giving these germs a fair fight?

When I was a kid, I don’t EVER remember washing my hands. I’m sure we did and I’m sure we were told to, I just have no memory of it. I remember being told to strip outside only if we were covered in mud from crayfish diving in the filthy river and even then, I don’t remember rinsing it off, just being told to remove my soiled clothes.

I understand the pendulum has swung but are kids sick less often? HA! We’ve had more flu, more allergies and way more sanitizer sniffing and pyramid bulldozing incidents than ever before.

I’m simply asking for a quick rinse before and after eating, handling food of any kind, returning from school, going to the bathroom, touching the t.v. convertor, doorknobs, grocery cart, van door, rec centre anything, books, bedding, glancing at Hornsour the cat through the window, before and after playing Uno, oh yeah and before touching mommy’s computer screen!