While most people have enjoyed a fun-filled sunny Easter weekend (or so I imagine), I have been stuck indoors with a very restless 14-month-old who has dreaded chickenpox. I say dreaded but I never really anticipated that it was going to be THIS bad. Yes, it’s a highly contagious childhood disease; yes, it’s maybe a little naive of me to think that I would escape all this entirely unscathed, but I don’t remember chickenpox being like this when I was a kid.
If my memory serves me right, when my brother and I had chickenpox, the parents took us to a big, empty field in Wales, where we could tire ourselves out by running around for a couple of hours, without the risk of infecting innocent passers-by. The only clue that we weren’t quite the picture of health was the calamine lotion that had been dotted in great big blobs all over our faces and limbs; other than that we seemed very happy.
My daughter’s case, however, tells a very different story and it ain’t pretty. The poor little munchkin is covered, head to toe, in spots and is very grumpy about the whole thing. To be honest, I know how she feels (about the grumpy part anyway). While I am doing everything I can to make this time as painless and fun as possible for her, the truth is I feel a bit helpless and there are more than a few occasions when I have wanted to run away to a big, empty field in Wales. Just for a bit of fresh, pox-free air.
Recently, one of the HerFamily team shared 10 times they wanted to run away during the vomiting bug. Today, I confess the 10 occasions when I wanted to run away during chickenpox. (Don’t judge me.)
1. When the crèche told me I was “very lucky” that my daughter was going to experience the worst of the illness over the long Easter weekend – when my husband and I were not in work.
2. When the crèche also told me that my daughter isn’t allowed back for AT LEAST seven days; during which time both sets of grandparents are away on holiday, and we are both due back in work. (Note to self: Grandparents must never be allowed to holiday at the same time.)
3. When my daughter reverted back to napping for 20 minutes, every two hours in the day. If we were lucky. I thought those days were long gone.
4. When my daughter then showed no interest of falling asleep – day or night – in her cot, our bed, the buggy, the car, our arms. Again, I thought those days had passed.
5. When, at 5.15am, I realised that I had seen every hour AT LEAST of the previous 24 hours. And not because I was up all night celebrating the long weekend.
6. When my daughter, whose very dirty nappy I was in the middle of changing, scratched the top off her most angry-looking spot before I could stop her, then proceeded to poke me in the eye with the same hand whilst also sneezing in my face. Definitely not one of my most glamorous moments in parenthood.
7. When we took a quick trip to a hardware store (because the spots looked like they were starting to scab over) and the shop assistant looked alarmingly at my daughter, as if she had leprosy (or so I thought). I quickly (and very defensively) pointed out that it was chickenpox, to which the shop assistant responded that she had never had them before.
8. When, after saying how relieved I was that I had already caught chickenpox as a child, my husband revealed that he had caught them twice. He then proceeded to prove that this was in fact possible with extremely frightening medical evidence online.
9. When I Googled symptoms and images of ‘adult chickenpox’.
10. When two spots that appeared on the side of my face began resembling the first two spots that appeared on my daughter, four days previously.
