We came down to the farm to do some work on the Christmas trees. Just before leaving Atlanta we celebrated Easter with Jarrett, Christi, Elsa and Avie at our house (that'll be another post) and just a couple of days later it was discovered that Elsa had the chickenpox.
We also found out that kids are contagious before they even exhibit their first pox- so we thought James might have been exposed. The days went on and nothing happened.
However, James did seem to get a runny nose, didn't want to eat, and had a slight fever (if I am remembering correctly). For the first time since leaving the baby stage he fell asleep in my arms in the middle of a meal. Also, on our drive up to the farm I noticed he had one spot on his right cheek and one spot on one of his hands. He had in the past gotten hives in response to viruses so I thought all the symptoms were just a cold.
While at the farm we needed to get some organic supplies for the Christmas trees and apple trees from 7 Springs Farm in VA, so James and I set off. He had a breakfast of oatmeal with blueberries before we hit the road.
We had just purchased the Ipad and I was excited to let him use it on the trip as it was just going to be the two of us for 5+ hours.
About 2 hours in I heard the sound no parent wants to hear in the car- their child vomiting. I looked back and there was poor James spewing out purple oatmeal EVERYWHERE- it was all over him, all over the carseat, all over the brand new IPad. I pulled over as soon as I could into a gas station parking lot and went to work getting everything cleaned up. Thankfully I had a large package of wipes with me, unfortunately I only had a spare zip-up cardigan for James to change into (other than a clean diaper). Since we hadn't actually made it to our destination yet I knew I'd have to figure out something for him to wear so in the next town I found a Walmart. I put James in the shopping cart with his cardigan on his top and his coat wrapped around his bottom half. Into Walmart we went, picked up some pants and on the way out stopped by the aisle with markers & paper (I wanted to get James something to do since I was assuming he had gotten sick due to car sickness using the Ipad) and while in that aisle he spied a rubber Manta Ray and in tears asked me for it. I try not to buy him toys at the store when he has whined about wanting one, but these were the tears of a little boy feeling under the weather so the Manta Ray came with us. That Manta Ray was very well loved for many months becoming more and more ragged- then it finally went MIA for several months until being rediscovered in a bag two weeks ago (see below pictures).
The rest of the errand trip was uneventful and we eventually made it back to the farm. Later that week we went back to Georgia where Avie had contracted Chicken Pox. Some appointment came up for Christi and I helped out by taking James over with me to their house to watch Avie- thinking that if James got the chicken pox from Avie that would be just fine with me. I know he was exposed because Avie was eating some puffs and dropped one out of her mouth onto the floor and James quickly scooped the slimed puff up and popped it into his own mouth. BUT James did not get the chicken pox. So my conclusion was that he had actually had the chicken pox earlier in the week- just a very mild case. I am thankful that he didn't have too many pox as I remember scratching mine and I got several scars. James came through his with virtually no marks.
