Gross Factor

I've had two children that when they were younger I could have held by the heels in a vat of slime and they would have come out looking as pristine as Grecian statutes. I have a third kid who at the elementary age level picks up every disease and microbe and parasite and germ and virus possible - things I never knew existed, things I will not repeat in public. She's like a sponge, the perfect victim, an unwittingly cooperative host. I don't know why her natural defense mechanisms are so low. Or why she seems to attract whatever it is that decides to plague her a particular quarter. Our latest battle was with a plantar's wart. She had to have been on the disinclined junior swim team about 17 seconds before bringing home the ailment that required twice daily dosing of high concentrations of salicylic acid for, gee, was it only six weeks?

Yesterday it hit me. What about STDs. I mean, I suppose I am just being incredibly neurotic, but if she is such a magnet for the miniature bad stuff ... A bubble pre-teen is born.