A pox in our house

So it turns out that kids can now get vaccinated for chicken pox. I suppose the benefit of this is that parents don't have to suffer through their kids' misery as the illness runs its course. The downside, though, is that the protection provided by the vaccination is temporary -- you've got to keep getting it on a regular basis, especially after you've reached adulthood and are are at risk of contracting worse illness than childhood chicken pox.

I opted to not have Tim immunized against chicken pox, thinking it would be better for him to be sick for a bit and be immunized for life. The risk, of course, is that he would never get the disease because most other kids have been artificially innoculated. (Thus, chicken pox parties.) My doctor assured me that we could wait until he was 10 or 12 to see if he caught it naturally, and if not just vaccinate him then.

FFWD to yesterday morning: I noticed spots on Tim's trunk, which I immediately took to be bites. By the end of the day, there were more and they had taken on a decidedly pimply look. This morning, a few more, also pimply... Internet searches rules out Coxsackie (spots are on hands, feet, and mouth), roseola (body rash), fifth disease (rash on cheeks)... etc. I kind of thought it was too good to be true, particularly because Tim was neither feverish or seeming very itchy (though he was starting to squirm a little). I made a call to Info-Santé (Quebec's Tele-health) to go over the symptoms, and the "health professional" on the line assured me that even in the absence of a fever the symptoms I described could be none other than chicken pox.

Huzzah! Life-long immunity!

It may get worse before it gets better, but Tim is notorious for getting the mildest form of illnesses. Dude seems to have the immune system of an elephant. Croup lasted three days, and nobody lost sleep. The gastro bug that felled the rest of the house left him unscathed. Tim doesn't even know how to pick his nose yet, because the rare cold he catches doesn't last long enough to leave nagging crusties behind.(This is awkward when he does have a booger, as he runs to ME to get it out.) Tim is many things, but one thing he is not is a snot-nosed kid.

So anyway, Pox Party at our house!

Morning in the new house

We moved a couple of weeks ago. (That's the short version of that story.)

As part of the move, Constance got a new-to-her queen sized bed for her awesome big bedroom. Tim, who had formerly slept on a futon, inherited Constance's single bed. We used the "you get Constance's old bed!" angle to help him be excited about sleeping in the new house and in a new bedroom on the first night.

That first night, though, Constance and Ben slept at their mom's place. When C disappeared at bedtime, Tim was confused. Turns out, he thought that inheriting Constance's old bed involved getting to sleep with Constance as well!

He made the most of it. That first night, he got up a once or twice in the night and I put him back in his bed (not totally unusual). We thought heard him up again at around 4 am, and waited for him to appear bedside. He did not, and we fell back asleep.

In the morning, Tim was not in his bed. McPie eventually found him here:

Fast asleep in Constance's new bed. He'd found his way all the way downstairs in the middle of the night, and curled up amid her half-unpacked stuff. Possibly the more notable thing about the whole adventure was that he slept here until nearly 9:00 am, an unprecedented sleep-in. (Which he has not repeated since... Sigh.)

Perma PJ's

After nap 'nack, with bedhead.

Lately, Tim has been obsessed with wearing pyjamas. Typically, I get him dressed in regular clothes at some point in the morning because we are going out somewhere. Upon arrival chez nous, he'll beeline it to his room, close the door, and emerge awhile later wearing PJ's. Part of the fascination for him in all this is putting them on all by himself, so inevitably he spends the rest of the day (or until we get dressed to go somewhere else) with all or part of his PJ's on inside-out and/or backwards. While Tim is quite particular about getting his shoes on the correct feet, he's not fussy at all about the relative position of his pyjamas, as long as they are on his body. (The above photo was taken at about 5:30 pm.)