A Pox on Your Child

People in medieval times believed that chicken pox was due to a curse. Tabitha just might agree with them after the past two days of her bout with chicken pox. She was one sick little baby. Apparently, she was exposed while still in the orphanage since the nearly two week stay with us in China fits the incubation period for the illness. Four of the 11 babies in our group have chicken pox. One of them we are very worried about; she has them in her eyes. We've exposed Hopers, who is unvaccinated, Doc T, who is pregnant, and the one billion people we came into contact with as we flew across the world on three flights, one of which included a 4 hour layover at the Chicago O'Hare airport. Sorry about that, we didn't know until the next day that the irritability was chicken pox. There were many things to be irritable about. Fourteen hour flights tend to do that to people.

Yesterday Tabitha felt much better and achieved several new accomplishments. After watching niece Hopers crawl across the floor, she decided crawling might be fun. No more staying in one room. She can walk but floor coverings and shoes are tricky things when you’re just learning and tend to trip you up when you least expect it. Crawling can get you somewhere quickly and if you fall, well, there’s only like 3 inches to the floor. You might think that a walking baby would already know how to crawl but because most orphanages are not heated, the babies are dressed in so many layers of clothing that they resemble starfish and are not given much tummy time on the cold floor. Not very conducive to crawling so they skip that stage and move on to walking.

The accomplishment she was most proud of was her mastery of the rocking chair. She knew it was kid-sized but she couldn’t get her short little legs high enough to climb in. Then baby Hopers, aka The Giant Baby, came to visit and climbed in with ease. Hopers, though 8 months younger, is a little taller than Tabitha and has been mobile since she was 4 months old so it was an easy feat for her. Not to be outdone by a 10-month-old, Tabitha figured out how to climb up also. Today she climbed in and out of the rocking chair 100s of times with the intense concentration of an Olympic athlete in training.

We have great plans for Tabitha and nieces Hopers and Noodle to become good friends. This will be especially convenient for us since big sister T will be watching Tabitha during the day when I return to work. Right now, Tabitha will not let anyone besides me hold her and has no use for other children, except as role models in exploring her world. Noodles, being a mature 5 year old, can get Tabitha to laugh and is very patient with her pushing her away and slapping at her. She thinks Tabitha is too cute and, of course, reinforces all the wrong behaviors by laughing at them. Each day, though, we see a happier and more secure baby, one who is accepting and liking her new world.