Happy Thanksgiving and other tales of woe.

Suffice it to say that we did not have the Thanksgiving experience that anyone would have desired.

At about 3 AM on Thanksgiving, Kid 1.0 awoke with a fever, which, honestly, has been par for the course for winter holidays for about 6 years now.

Fortunately, it was just the four of us at home for the day, so we managed to prepare and eat our feast and take care of her, and not rain on anyone else's parade.

Anyway, it pretty quickly became apparent that she was quite sick, then it became apparent that she had the flu (my guess, H1N1, but no tests were ever done). We ended up at the pediatrician's on Saturday because I suspected conjunctivitis (pink eye) had set it. In the course of that exam, the doc discovered a tiny seashell lodged in her right ear! Well, obviously we had that removed right then. When queried as to the origins of the seashell, and how long it might have been there, she just said, "maybe when I was three or four—when it was still three stories a night at bedtime."

Go figure.

On Sunday, we ended up at urgent care after I called her pediatrician's office because I was worried about her breathing combined with the high fever. Her lungs were good but she had developed a double-ear infection by then. So back to the pharmacy for amoxicillin to go along with the antibiotic eye drops, as well as an OTC cough medicine for her.

I'll shorten the saga at this point, to bullets:

• Monday: Kid 1.0 still has a high fever and now a serious cough. By this time she has been really sick for 5 days. She is obviously not going to school any time soon.
• Tuesday: I get sick with the fever and aches; Tom comes home from work early to help out; Kid 1.0 improves a little, then her fever is up high again in the evening. I speed dial the pediatrician for advice and we decide to wait and watch. I am praying Tot 2.0 won't get the flu and am scrambling to find her a booster H1N1 vaccination before she gets sick.
• Wednesday: Tom stays home from work to help out since I feel like death on toast. Kid 1.0's temp is normal during the day, but spikes in the evening.
• Thursday: I head for the doc to get some serious cough medicine and confirm I don't have bronchitis; Kid 1.0's fever is down again during the day but spikes at night; Tot 2.0 gets her H1N1 booster.
• Friday (today): Kid 1.0 is feeling much better. We head back to the pediatrician for follow-up; her ears don't look as good as they should so he thinks she's got a resistant infection and extends her antibiotics a few more days. This would explain the persistent fever that pops back in the evenings. She gets her follow-up H1N1 vaccination too, just in case. I sound like a frog but am not feverish and feel better after a decent night's sleep—codeine-laced cough syrup has done its job! Tot 2.0 is still healthy and happy. Tom is back at work.

So that's it in a nutshell; although it kind of wrings some of the drama out of it. I've made four trips to the doctor for the girls the past week—including my first ever trip to urgent care—which is more than I've made in the previous two years.

I will say this though, our Thanksgiving meal, a tag-team effort between Tom and me, was delicious, and I was quite thankful to have the leftovers as we blindly wandered our way through hell over the following days. And I'm thankful for the love, concern and support we received from family and friends over this crazy, crazy week.

All I want from Santa this year is a germ-free Christmas!

Tom carves our "Blast Furnace" turkey, roasted at

500 degrees for 1 1/2 hours on a bed of rock salt.