Zombie Zoo

Since I have been back at work (16 business days) Miss Molly has been banished* from daycare for 4.5 days....and counting.  Last week it was a combination of teething along with what our nurse practitioner says is called Slapped Cheek Disease.  Basically this is a virus (aka fifths disease) that starts off like a fevered cold and ends in a rash that looks like someone took a round out of you. In Molly's case, a serious slap to her right cheek and then her chest and back.  Once there is the onset of the rash it is very unlikely that the child is contagious.

What no one told me about Slapped Cheek Disease is that once the infected child begins to feel better, i.e. no longer fevered and lethargic they begin to take on Apocalyptic Zombie Infection levels of rage, strength and sound.  The entire weekend was filled with insistence on the Kangaroo treatment**, temper tantrums, crying, tears, screaming, then finally into the crib for a time out - only to recycle the above...endlessly with increasing venom each rotation of the cycle.

This is a wind up Zombie...when he walks he poops candy.  He is the Zombie that keeps on giving.

Last night we had a debate on whether or not daycare could send Molly home for being generally unpleasant, difficult and round the bend enraged.  We figure that until she can get herself so worked up that she runs a fever or gives herself a rage rash (I'm pretty sure that isn't a real thing) they can't call us to come get her.  Daycare called me last week to get input on techniques I use to calm down the wrath contained within the 19lb confines of the girl child.***

I seriously worry about Molly and her rogue personality, especially as someone who was thrown out of nursery school for her refusal to eat cabbage, toilet train and constant screaming.  One staff at the nursery school actually quit because of me.  I imagine that was the breaking point that lead to their decision to throw me out. I often thought my mother was lying about my expulsion, until 13 years later when I ran into the employee who quit because of me.  She was a nanny for a family that I babysat for and she recognized me instantly, confronting me about my pants soiling, blood curdling screaming, and theatrical ways.  I didn't have any satisfactory answers for her.  She pretended to be over it - but she wasn't.  This woman surely had other problems becoming unhinged because of a toddler, right?****    I fear that the acorn doesn't fall far from the the old oak tree when it comes to Miss Molly and me.

The worst thing about Slapped Cheek is that it has an incubation period of 4-21 days.  Which essentially means that Jack is a ticking time-bomb.  And the worst part is, much like a zombie, he's the one who bites.




*"But purgatory, torture, hell itself.  Hence-banished is banish'd from the world.  And the world's exhile is death: then banished, is death mis-termed: calling death banishement, Thou cuttest my head off with a golden axe, and smilest upon the stroke that murders me."  In non-Shakespearean terms, she was sent to Nana and Grampa's where she tortured their dog, ate digestive cookies and napped. 
**Being secured to myself or her dad constantly, like a baby Joey.
***Can I claim to be an expert in child-rearing now because even people with extensive training in early childhood education need my input on taming the beast?
**** Says the woman who spent better parts of this past weekend and the months surrounding colic on the brink of dementia because of her girl child.