>>>> My kids had the full round of immunizations (though Solomon had chicken pox long before there was a vaccine). I'd do the same if I had it to do over again.
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>>>>Thanks - that seems to be the consensus. I actually didn't know until recently that there WAS a vaccine against chicken pox. Glad I got my week off from school in the first grade before they came up with the vaccine (got to watch the greatest kids show of all time, the Banana Splits)
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>>>Yeah, I had it when I was in first grade, too. With Solomon, it was a little inconvenient. We found the spots after everyone had gone home from Nathaniel's bris (circumcision). We'd had 40 or 50 people in the house, including a dozen or so other pre-schoolers, and of course, we had a 1-week old. Amazingly, none of them, including Nathaniel, caught it.
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>>>Nathaniel never did get chicken pox, so before he went off to college, he had the vaccine, since chicken pox can be really nasty for adults.
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>>Exactly. The vaccine came along after both girls had already had it. Somehow it came up in conversation with their pediatrician and she said she was not recommending it. She said it's not all that big a deal for a young child, just a crummy week, but can be serious later in life.
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>>Here is a kind of funny memory. When Allie was about two weeks old we were going to go over and spend Sunday with my best friend and his family. He called the day before and said we may need to reschedule; their boys had both come down with chicken pox. Then again, he said, you may want to come anyway and just get it out of the way. I said thank you for your kind offer to INFECT my baby but I think we'll pass, LOL.
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>What's really interesting is that as an adult, you can get shingles, but only if you had chicken pox previously. It's really the same virus coming back out after being dormat for many years, but this time not as chicken pox again. Shingles is not a fun thing, not fatal, but really not fun. Take if from one who knows.

I have heard they are very painful. My sympathies.

My guess is the worst part is having to spend all that time on the roof....