The Pox!

Mrs_Fox - 8 Jun 16

How typical is it that literally two weeks ago, my husband and I were discussing the option of getting our two year old twins immunized against chicken pox?! Not that we are fraidy cats wanting to wrap our precious babies in a cushiony bubble, but because my kids seem to have a habit of getting poorly right before a special occasion.

In December last year, D got pneumonia the day before we were due to fly to Portugal for our annual family holiday abroad. Last summer, E got croup the day before we were due to travel to Pembrokeshire and we had to find out where the local hospital was. And the first family holiday we went on, they both got hand foot and mouth disease!

So as you can imagine, we were cautious so thought even though it would cost, vaccinating against chicken pox might be a good idea. Especially if they were both to get it one after the other :(. We obviously jinxed ourselves.

For two weeks prior to the bank holiday weekend, I thought someone had swapped my well behaved, lovely, beautiful twinnies for two devil children and I thought that the terrible twos had definitely hit the Fox household. They were throwing tantrums, fighting, not sleeping and generally not being a huge amount of fun to be around. I should have known!

Then on the Monday of the bank holiday weekend, E woke at 4:30am after a really broken night wanting to go to the potty. Oh yes, did I not mention that we were also potty training her. Great timing! So she woke, grizzly, grumpy and…spotty! Covered. The poor baby was plastered from head to toe in angry red spots. I bloody knew it!

So why was this such a bad thing? Well, they were due to be bridesmaid and page boy at their Godmother’s wedding the following Saturday. A wedding full of small children, babies and pregnant ladies. A wedding we’d already spent a small fortune on their little outfits for. Grrr!

As the day went on, poor spotty E got spottier and spottier. And then D started to get them. Thank god! I had visions of her having it and then two weeks later, him getting it. At least they’d got it within 12 hours of each other. But, I did have to make the phone call to Auntie K that said ‘Um sorry, you know your Godchildren, well they might not be able to come to your wedding because they might be contagious’. To be fair, she was really understanding and said let’s just play it by ear.

Which we did. And luckily the weather was lovely so they weren’t wearing too many clothes and were playing in the paddling pool, so the spots didn’t bother them too much. Except at night when we seemed to get no sleep! We were on night 19 of broken sleep and I thought we might break too. Thankfully on the Thursday we turned a corner and they slept through again. How did we manage when they were babies? Arghh! Sleep deprivation!

So we were left with the dilemma of should we / shouldn’t we take them to the wedding. We wanted to take them, Auntie K wanted them there, but could we risk it. All the guidelines and my friend who is a GP say that they are not contagious from about 5 days after the first spot, which was Friday. Too close for comfort!

So at the eleventh hour, we decided to take them to the church so that they could be part of the service, wear their little outfits and have some photographs taken. But not mix with the masses and spread their pox like wildfire! And then Granny would take them home and Mummy and Daddy would get to party in peace. The perfect solution.

And they were so good and they looked so cute and everybody loved them. And then they went home and Mummy and Daddy went and got royally drunk! It was a great reception and we were pretty late home, but it was lovely. Until we got home and the monsters were still awake. And then we had another massively broken night dealing with itchy scratchy toddlers. Pissed! Bloody brilliant! Hangovers and toddlers do not mix. Sunday was not the best day.

Thankfully they are now on the mend and the spots are disappearing and it doesn’t look like there will be any scarring. But the grumpiness and tantrums remain. What is that about?! I’m hoping that they are the last thing to go. Otherwise, it really is because they’re terrible and two. Argh!

Mrs_Fox

Mumma to two year old boy/girl twinnies. Working hard and loving life. Favourite things are cooking, eating, shopping, days out, nights in, my friends and most importantly my family. Always late, but worth the wait. Wife, Mama, Daughter, Sister and Friend. Wannabe superhero!

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