Take the Pocked Kids Sledding

As a last hurrah before we all go back to school next week, I took the kids sledding this morning. Y'all might remember last year's incident when Solstice smashed her face & I fucked up my shoulder; well, I'm happy to report we all made it through our outing unscathed. We just went down the road to the hill by Perry Kindergarten. I was thinking about going to Rolling Hills, but I wasn't up for the big climb & the kids didn't seem to care one way or the other. In fact, I think they kind of preferred the smaller hill. The problem I have w/ sledding though is that it always makes me long for skiing and sledding up north. Growing up in Petoskey kind of spoiled me for the sledding around here. Although I wasn't up for the long climb today, if we had easy access to the hills up north, I'd have been willing to suffer the long walk. There was a sledding hill down the street from my house that worked like a funnel (or in Alpine terms, a bowl... not to be confused w/ a nice piece of glass). It was about 450 ft long, it had a crazy grade, & there was an electrified barbed wire fence @ the bottom. We had to time our ducking well or we'd have gotten pretty fucked up. In hind sight, I can't believe our parents let us use that hill. Of course, there's a house there now so this generation of kids is getting screwed out of that awesome sledding spot. Solstice's Snow Angel Aiden... ready to launch Solstice not hurting herself
In other news, Solstice had the Chicken Pox this week. Stephanie & I had been vigilant in our quest to get them infect for quite some time. She even went so far as to have Solstice share a sucker w/ some kid who had them a couple years ago. However, it had always been to no avail. Last weekend, Stephanie called & told me she thought we may have had a breakthrough in the quest for pox though. And she was right. This past week, Solstice has been "suffering" w/ the mildest case of Chicken Pox I've ever seen. They did prevent us from going to Jim & Rachel's New Years Eve Party though, but we had a nice time hanging out @ home. Aiden still hasn't shown any symptoms, but I'm waiting patiently. I hope he gets them soon so we can get it over w/.

One history of medicine book credits Giovanni Filippo (1510–1580) of Palermo with the first description of varicella (chickenpox). Subsequently in the 1600s, an English physician named Richard Morton described what he thought a mild form of smallpox as "chicken pox." Later, in 1767, a physician named William Heberden, also from England, was the first physician to clearly demonstrate that chickenpox was different from smallpox. However, it is believed the name chickenpox was commonly used in earlier centuries before doctors identified the disease.

There are many explanations offered for the origin of the name chickenpox:
*Samuel Johnson suggested that the disease was "less dangerous", thus a "chicken" version of the pox;
*the specks that appear looked as though the skin was pecked by chickens;
*the disease was named after chick peas, from a supposed similarity in size of the seed to the lesions;
*the term reflects a corruption of the Old English word giccin, which meant itching.
As "pox" also means curse, in medieval times some believed it was a plague brought on to curse children by the use of black magic.

From ancient times, neem has been used by Indians to alleviate the external symptoms of itching and to minimise scarring. Neem baths (neem leaves and a dash of turmeric powder in water) are commonly given for the duration. During the medieval era, oatmeal was discovered to soothe the sores, and oatmeal baths are today still commonly given to relieve itching. (All praise to Wikipedia for this historical over-view.)