Fingers crossed

Now that I've so generously shared my recent case of the chicken pox with my daughter (damn you, daycare policy, for insisting on pre-paying and no refunds for a sick child), my close friend, her son and the entire handbag department at TJ Maxx (or so it seems), I have to count my blessings (there are 28, if you wondered) that all of the outbreaks were of the mild variety.

In my mind, I seem to remember the chicken pox of my childhood being a whole lot more ominous. Kind of like acquiring some disfiguring skin disorder that meant staying home from school and immediate quarantine from all species who had furless skin as if the mere act of being looked upon by someone under 8 years old would instantly infect them with the watery, scar-inducing blisters.

I mean, I'm grateful that she had no more than 5 or 6 spots and we blissfully continued on with our lives with little alteration (which, in retrospect, could have been how things spread within my inner circle to begin with, oops); but, to not know the oatmeal baths, being drowned in sticky pink calamine lotion or the facial scars that come with the chicken pox of years ago is, well, progress.