Out with the germs!

It has not been a great weekend at our house. Charlie ran a fever all week last week, and George took him to the doctor on Friday (2nd visit in a week) to find out he had an ear infection. He's now on antibiotics, and the fever seems to have subsided, but now the infection is leaving by route of his nose. We're going through Kleenex like you wouldn't believe and I'm feeling pretty much perpetually grossed out. At least I've learned to use the bulb suctioner, though. New parents, get the Red Cross one with the little door at the end of the bulb - better, b/c it actually gets clean!


Poor Charlie is obviously struggling with all the mucus and it's affecting his eating. Yesterday, since he was fever-free, we took him with us to run some errands and stopped at PF Changs for a quick bite mid-afternoon before taking Charlie to see Santa. Charlie was very interested in all the food and tried a bit of everything. The lemon cake, however, put him over the edge and (stop reading now if you're weak-stomached) he "gave back" everything he'd eaten and the milk he had drunk. So instead of seeing Santa, we rushed out of the restaurant (after doing our best to clean up with the help of some very kind wait staff) and home. Charlie napped for an hour and woke up feeling better again.


Instead of going to the Christmas party we'd been invited to last night (we weren't quite feeling up to it), we bundled up and went Christmas light viewing. There's a guy on Collingwood Road (just down the road from us) who was on the TLC show about crazy Christmas light displays, so we had to go see it. The guy uses 6 MILES of extension cord to put his show on, and times his lights to music. He has a sign up telling passers-by to tune their radios to 88.1 - and when you do so in front of his house, you get his music and a light show to go with it. It's so amazing, and causes quite the traffic jam. We took some photos, but they don't really do it justice. If you live in the DC metro area and want an impressive show, let me know and I can provide more info about the location of this marvel.



Here's a very short video that shows it off a little better:


This morning, I woke up with a terrible sore throat, and ended up at the CVS Minute Clinic. Thank goodness they're open on Sundays, since they're pretty sure what I have is strep. I started my course of antibiotics now, so hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow too, and won't be contagious after 24 hours of meds. I was tempted to ask the pharmacist if I could have the orange flavored stuff that Charlie is enjoying right now!


We also planned to get our Christmas tree today, but didn't pay attention to the weather report - and it's been raining all day long. Since we're spending Christmas in Lexington with my parents, maybe we won't get a tree this year. Oh well - we did get out the beautiful Christmas stockings my Aunt Liz made for each of us, so they are getting me in the spirit! And our little walker has me in the spirit too:



Charlie's been sleeping for 3 1/2 hours this afternoon - clearly he needed to catch up, poor guy. Time to get him up! Hope everyone has had a nice weekend!