Screeching Halt

Well, here is the answer to "What ever happened to taking another round of Christmas pictures?" One lethargic eight year old, burning up with fever. Joined just hours later by his 12 year old brother, also burning up with fever.

This was on Monday.

They are still burning up with fever and it is now Wednesday night. It just might be time to go see the doctor tomorrow.

Tonight as I put Sam in a cool bath to try to coax down his 103.9 fever, he eased into the water with a long "Ahhhhhh". We washed his hair and slowly got him back onto dry land. His fever was a few degrees cooler and the bath water had gotten a few degrees warmer. (at least that's what I told him, and I kind of believe it too...)

So not only is our next attempt at a Christmas picture on hold until this thing passes, this just happens to be the week that my article in the parenting column of the paper was about how sometimes I feel like a negligent mom, not rushing my kids to the doctor with every little sniffle.

Guess we'll be seeing Dr. Karen tomorrow. It's been a whole six days since we've seen her. I'm sure she misses us.

Flash Forward one week: We did go see Dr. Karen. And by the time we schlepped back out of her office we had five diagnosis.

Both boys had the flu that brings high fevers. Both boys had strep throat. And on top of all of that, Baby Boy also had pneumonia. He was such a mess that he was subjected to a huge shot of antibiotics in the butt before we left the office. I had never seen that done before. One huge dose, all at once, to jump start his healing. It is a long, painful process and feels twice as bad when you feel pretty crappy to start with. My boys got extra hugs that day. It is hard to watch debilitating illness when you're the mom.

It was the morning that I realized Christmas cards would not be mailed out on time and Christmas cookies might not get baked. We'd be lucky to get a bare bones holiday pulled off. But after a week home from school everyone got better and by the time Santa came there were smiles all around.