Two days ago my little man turn nine months old. He celebrated a day early with a spectacular outbreak of the infamous childhood sickness... chicken pox! Now I believe there is never a good time to be ill but so many people have said how lucky we are to get it over with early - which then begs the question, when I offered all his friends the fabulous opportunity to come round to play and catch the pox, why did all the mums say no?
The hidden 'joy' of chicken pox is you have no idea when or where your precious child picked up the virus. It is caught and remains dormant in the body for 10 - 21 days - I struggle to remember where we went two days ago let alone ten so its origin will forever remain a mystery to us! I did the dutiful thing and phoned all those we had been in contact with over the last few days (to date no-one is ill but if my maths is correct anyone who is going to suffer as a result of contact with my little man should start to feel poorly by the end of next week!). To start with I fell foul of being rather smug as polite enquires about his health had me saying 'he isn't too bad, just a few spots and in good spirits, I have mown the lawn and started to paint his bedroom, got the washing done blah blah blah.' Oh how I was to pay for such a cock-sure attitude! One very sleepless night later and the day from hell began, ironically, on April Fools Day! My 'not to spotty' boy and suddenly gone from a dot-to-dot for children to a blockbuster in braille! The eyes, ears and even his tongue became victim to this affliction.
In the depths of the poor little mans misery there comes a moment that makes you wonder at just how amazing the little people are. Our boy has a temperature, chicken pox everywhere, is itching like crazy and through all this he suddenly discovers he can clap his hands together! And there was my saving moment, my silver lining to that very grey of days. Each time he started to grizzle I started to sing 'if your happy and you know it', he would look at his hands, start clapping them together and grin at just how clever he was! The song became the 'catch-phrase' of the next few days. It was a wonderful thing to be able to make such a sorry little man smile through his misery though I wonder if my PMs smile was wiped from his face when he heard it for the enth time throughout the following nights!
Today the little man has been slightly better and my skills as a singer have been given a bit of a rest. I felt very lucky having so many people text, phone and FB (Facebook) to see how the patients progress has been. I also have a wonderful PM who on the worst day came home from work and took over being nursemaid and entertainer so I could finally escape the house for some much needed fresh air, time out and in true 'slummy mummy style' a healthy glass or two of wine with the GGs (Greenhithe Girls).
Very bright sliver linings indeed!
PS. Treatments to recommend: bicarbonate of soda in a tepid bath, calamine cream (not so drying as lotion) and baby ibuprofen - if over a year old they can have antihistamine syrup to ease the itching, bad luck for those who were under a year old at the time!
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