Chicken Pox!!!

A warm cup of chamomile tea, some yummy dates, and three sleeping babies - my recipe for a blog post. After a beautifully cloudy day with my parents down to visit, a 2-hour walk/jog on the biking trail thrown in the mix, I can think of no better way to end my day. I will be posting about our wonderful biking trail soon, as it is one of our favorite places to be and I have so many memories to share. But today I thought I would take you back to the..... (suspenseful music...) CHICKEN POX (this to be said in a loud, scary theatrical voice). The poxy days, although weeks past, are still fresh in my mind as I look at Kane and Max's marks and wonder how many will scar. They, thankfully, didn't pick at any of the scabs - they all fell off on their own - but some were still so big and so deep that they have left quite a mark for now. I guess we'll see...

The first few days of itchiness I put them in baths with goat milk powder and vitamin E capsules. With their food allergies, we just can't do oatmeal baths, so that was my substitution. After three days of those I did have to wash them as they started to, well, smell like goat milk :-). But it was a nice, soothing treatment for those itchies.

Between baths they were covered in a mixture of colloidal silver, lavender calendula salve from our wonderful friend at the local Farmer's Market, and tea tree oil. They probably would have smelled like goat milk sooner had the tea tree and lavender not covered it up so well! Uncharacteristically, Bella ended up getting them the least of the three. She had a few on her face and head, a few on her tummy and back, and some in her mouth and throat. That was it for her.

The older you are the worse the case, supposedly, but Max really got them the worst. Kane had the most pox. One day I sat Kane down to count the ones on his face and there were 45. Ugh. He was miserable.

But his didn't get as big and scabby as Max's did. And while Kane's seemed to just stop bothering him after about three days, Max had so many in his hair that his bugged him for much longer. At first I didn't want to admit how miserable it really was for all of us. After all, I DID purposely expose them to the virus. But I will freely admit now that there were a few days that were really hairy. Thankfully Bella didn't get them as bad, and hers broke out about 2 days after the boys, so that made it easier than it could have been. They all had them in their throats and mouths, though, which I think made them the most miserable. It was kind of cute, though, to ask Max to show you his chicken pox and see him hang that tongue out for you.

Can you see the one right in the middle of his tongue? He also had his bottom incisors coming in, so that didn't help matters. For about a week he was either doing this:

Or this:

Or this:

Ah, but it is all over with now, and there is always that silver lining. For us, that silver lining is called Lifelong Acquired Immunity, so I have three children who should never have to worry about the chicken pox for the rest of their lives. I am happy that it is behind us, but I am still thrilled that we went to our Pox Party, shared that juice box, and did what will be best for them in the long run. Now, the cup of tea is gone, as is the bag of dates - it was NOT full when I started this - and those three shining stars of mine are still snoozing away. So I am going to go join them and sleep off those aches that will set in tomorrow from having jogged farther today than I have in, oh, 5 years or so.