This file includes poems, quotes and page ideas for illness and accidents (mostly for children). Also see Frowns and Tears and Health.
(Crystal Bowman)
Oh, look at all my horrid spots!
I think I've got the chicken pox.
They're on my arms and on my nose;
They're even in between my toes.
They're on my chest and in my hair
These chicken pox are everywhere!
They're on my feet and elbows, too!
I don't know what I'm going to do.
Twelve new spots appeared today
I wish that they would go away
So I could go outside and play!
(Bobbie Katz)
Attack some nice kid.
Tickle his throat.
Disappear his voice.
Give him two days off from school.
(Sniffle, sniffle, sniffle.)
Get drowned in rivers of orange juice
And chicken soup.
Be a pest.
Disappear!
(Kay Winters)
It's just not funny
When your nose is runny;
You feel all soggy,
Hoarse and froggy.
Your throat is scratching;
The germs are hatching.
You know it's catching--
KERCHOOO!
(author unknown)
It doesn't breathe;
It doesn't smell;
It doesn't feel
So very well.
I am discouraged
With my nose:
The only thing it
Does is blows.
(author unknown)
I took a sip of lemon pop
And then a sip of lime,
A little orange soda, too,
A swallow at a time.
Some grape came next and cherry red,
and then I almost cried.
How could my stomach feel so bad
With rainbows down inside?
(Bruce Lansky)
Ath I wath biking
down the thtweet,
I hit a bump
and lotht my theat.
I cwathed my bike
into a twee,
I thcwathed my fathe,
Oh, woe ith me.
My bike ith wecked,
I've no excuthe.
And wortht of all,
My tooth ith looth.
(author unknown)
While learning to walk my small son fell
head over heels down the front stairwell,
and many and many the lumpy knot
adorned the skull of my questing tot.
When at last he progressed beyond his trike
he cracked his head tumbling off a bike,
and then came the summer he broke his arm
scaling the rafters down at the farm.
Oh, he's worth his weight, this lad of mine,
in patching plaster and iodine.
Why just last fall, when he learned to ski,
the doctor thought that he'd cracked his knee.
But now that he's grown, do my troubles cease?
Can I look ahead to calm years of peace?
No, I pray for strength from the heavens above.
Today he went out and fell in love!
For photos of an accident involving broken bones or x-rays cut a strip of black paper two inches wide to go down the side of the page. Use white ABC stickers to spell out the word "X-Ray" vertically on the strip of paper (starting at the top and going about 2/3 of the way down). At the bottom of the strip put a skeleton sticker. (Stephanie H. CMC)
Pour a drop of Elmer's Glue over the splinter, let dry, then peel the dried glue off the skin. The splinter sticks to the glue.
(Karla Kuskin)
I'm very good at climbing
I nearly climbed a tree
But just as I was almost up
I sort of skinned my knee.
I'm wonderful at walking
I almost walked a mile
But when I got around the block
I rested for a while.
I'm excellent at swimming
Though I'm not very old
I almost swam the ocean
But the water was too cold.
But what I'm really best at
Is skipping down the hall.
I'm very good at skipping.
I'm wonderful at skipping.
I'm marvelous at skipping.
That is unless I fall.
(Shel Silverstein)
"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more-that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue--
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke--
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is . . . Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"