Is cold season over yet?

Yet again minor illness has descended upon our house - we had a lovely three week reprieve from illness while we were in Hawaii and while the latest round of germs were incubating.  I swear that every single time we go out with the girls where there are other children somebody gets sick.  When they are healthy,  I make sure to go to lots of activities to get our fill of socializing because I know it's just a matter of time before they get sick again and we are once again quarantined.  I can't wait until spring and the end of cold, flu and mystery virus season.  The pediatrician says things should start to get better around April - just one more month!

This time Kate has come down with a nasty ear infection which required a trip to the ER last night when her fever spiked to 105.2 (or if you trust temporal artery thermometers: 105.6).  Luckily it was a quick and uneventful trip.  They basically looked in her ear, told us she had an ear infection, gave us some antibiotics, dosed her with Tylenol and sent us on our way.  I didn't want to be the hysterical new parent taking her kid into the ER over some minor illness, but even our pediatrician seemed alarmed at how high Kate's fever was and recommended that we take her in.  She was a lot better today but still spiked a fever around 4 PM again - this time it only went to 102.9.  I hope tomorrow she'll be even better.


Here are a few pictures I took today of both girls (before Kate's fever came back).  They have learned how to climb into the rocking chair and I finally decided to just let them climb in there and hang out as long as they want instead of shooing them off in fear that they'll somehow fall out of it and hurt themselves.  They were both very excited to be able to sit in the chair by themselves and spent almost 30 minutes reading books and just sitting there looking pleased with themselves.