Head Lice, Sunburn and Constipation: The Child Health Apocalypse Year in Review.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since I’ve been partnered with the CHPA (Consumer Healthcare Products Association) and their #KnowYourOTCs campaign. One of the main reasons that I found this opportunity so interesting was that almost every single topic has either happened to me (er, the kids) in the past or we’ve encountered it thus far in our parenting journey.

With the beginning of the year coming up, it makes sense to revisit how I began this journey – with a head full of lice. Well, not me, but my kids. Tis’ the season to watch your child’s teacher systematically gather hats, gloves, jackets and scarves and shove them preventatively into a cubby inside of a big, black garbage bag every morning.

If you or your family got lice instead of tidings and cheer this Christmas, check out THIS post for how to handle this devastating nightmare…

January also brings us an item less invasive, however, it still bears talking about.

Expired medicine.

At the beginning of each year, my wife and I take a few hours and go through every cabinet that holds medicine for us and/or the kids. What I realized in doing this previous post and getting myself educated on safe disposal of medicine, is that I’ve been doing it all wrong.

You can’t just flush pills and capsules down the toilet.

The overwhelming concern by doing that, is they eventually enter our water system. Simply emptying the script bottles into the trash can, means that they remain exposed in a landfill for birds, animals or people to come in contact with…click HERE to see how I handled it.

While it’s important to think and act responsibly about safe disposal of outdated meds and how they might affect others – we also owe it to ourselves to maintain our own wellness.

This idea always seems to hit me every March, with this year being extra special as I turned the ripe age of 40.

At 253 pounds, I had let myself go completely. This kinda thing happens when you get swallowed up in the daily parenting grind – jumping from pick-up/drop-off to household upkeep, bills, writing deadlines and extracurricular activities. I’m happy to say that, since a few weeks before THIS post in May, I’ve successfully managed to shed 33 pounds and feel so much better about myself – even the kids have noticed my renewed energy.

Part of the reason (aside from not being able to see myself pee anymore) that I needed to melt off that winter fat layer was the opening of our community pool in early summer. Along with dusting off the diver darts and noodles, it was time to embrace the season of bee stings, bug bites and the inevitable sunburn.

Click through HERE to check out some summer survival tips and how to handle those little injuries when they crop up!

With summer eventually coming to an end, it was time to gather school supplies and prepare to send the kids back to the academic germ incubator.

One of things that I finally started opening up about this year, were the problems Mason has had with one of his kidneys. He’s been on antibiotics since birth, as we wait to see if the issue heals itself or he’s finally old enough that we actually feel like talking about the potential advantages and disadvantages of surgery.

With cooler weather and the kids strewn across three different classrooms, we’re bound to face the random illnesses. It’s become extremely important for us to understand how OTC’s might interact with his daily script – and it should be every parent’s concern to know how different medicines might work in conjunction with one another.

And last but certainly not least… it wouldn’t be a day or year in the life of a busy parent if you didn’t have to deal with the dark side of potty-training, specifically constipation. Anyone can just step onto the scene and use their sense of sight and smell to determine whether or not a #2 has been delivered eloquently or as a potential biological disaster.

The tough part is taking notice of when your kid DOESN’T poop and how you can manage to move that along (pun intended).

Thanks for tuning in over the last year, to partake in some legitimate discussion and I’m hoping that we all learned one or two things (I know that I did) about the handling of health related issues and our kids!

As always, learn more about those issues AND over-the-counter medicines at www.KnowYourOTCs.com and follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was a sponsored post on behalf of CHPA and the #KnowYourOTCs campaign, however the opinions, thoughts and embarrassing pictures my kids will kill me later for are all mine.