The Pox

Yesterday we discovered that our little angel, Abigail, was infected with the dreaded chicken pox virus. Now before you ask, no, they don't vaccinate against that here in the UK. Get over it! She's got little red spots all over her tummy, chest, neck, ears, head, and a few on her legs. Some of them have crusted over and some are still mysteriously appearing.

I have incredibly vivid memories of my own childhood battle against the dreaded itchy spots which they didn't vaccinate against way back then either. I was in 4th grade. My teacher was Mrs. Pyatt. She had big red hair not unlike Margaret Thatcher. We were studying the culture of the Native American Indians and I had built a beautiful model of a plains settlement complete with tepees, buffaloes and pretend fires scaled down to size. I had worked on this day and night and I was so excited to show it off.

On the appointed day my mother came in to help me get dressed and discovered the tell tale red spots all over my body and promptly tucked me back into bed. My joy at getting to stay at home all day was quickly diminished when I realised I wouldn't get to present the creative fruits of my hard labour. I cried. When I realised I would be out of school for over a week, I cried some more.

My mother spoke to my teacher who assured her and in turn assured me that I would be able to present my project when I went back to school. So I went to bed and tried not to scratch til I bled. For 6 days.

By the time I returned to school with my project proudly held aloft, the teacher had long forgotten her pledge and the students had moved on to studying something else. I received a dismissive instruction to put it on the table in the corner where it sat and gathered dust until the end of term.

Fortunately, my daughter appears to be far less traumatised my her viral experience. It is half term so she was going to be home from school anyway. Her father is watching over her until I can escape from my back to back meetings in the office. Her appetite is suppressed and she has just a very minor elevated temperature. She is bouncing around and seems to be quite happy about her predicament. Whilst she has some itching, she is a very old soul and is displaying very sensible scratching practices like not using her nails and only rubbing. Where ever did she get such sensibilities?

She is such an angel. Although she did announce that her father is much better at putting on the calamine lotion and blowing air on her spots than I am. I've studied his technique and really don't see what I am doing differently. I guess I will just have to live with that inadequacy and consider it an opportunity for growth.