Chicken Pox Carnage, Take One

This week started off with a bang. No, really. Sunday night rang in Monday morning rather epically with a raging pillow fight…and the “thud” of my youngest hitting the floor, neck and shoulders first, mid-skirmish. Insert bath time here to loosen aching muscles and low and behold, we see what looks like hives plastered all across his chest.

Yep. Time to pick up the phone and dial a doctor. Off we go, only to find out we’re not fighting with anything as harmless as overactive basophils. Oooooooooh no. Along with a nice case of whiplash, we’re going head to head with…duh duh duh…our first REAL case of chicken pox!

There’s Fake Chicken Pox?

Meh. Sort of. See, thanks to a little thing called the varicella vaccine, chicken pox has been a frequent but wimpy visitor in this house. A few spots here. A few spots there. Kids score a day off of school, mom plasters them in Calamine, and we're good to go.

This time, however, G Money just couldn’t do it. At this writing he’s got a nice strip wrapping over his shoulder and around his chest, with a massive colony of spots hiding under the skin and promising to make an appearance by tomorrow morning. He’s itchy. Whiny. WAY past cranky. And leaving mom and dad scrambling for ways to get through the next week without giving in to the urge for an unexpected trip to Fiji to put ourselves out of our misery.

War Stories to Come

You’d think, given the fact that both dad and myself had a miserable case of chicken pox when we were younger, that we’d have some awesome techniques up our sleeve. You’d be wrong. Even after a couple of minor cases floating around the house, we’re still staring blankly at the munchkin as the spots keep marching on.

I’m sure I’m going to have some awesome survival stories by the end of the week (and the phone number for the pizza delivery place and the liquor store on speed dial), but for now I have the Aveeno in one hand and a bottle of Caladryl in the other. So let me shout out to you, all those amazing, wonderful, experienced parents out there. How did you survive your first case of chicken pox?