So the Omegas went on a field trip yesterday evening: to the ER. OmegaDotter, who tends to run high fevers, exceeded her own stellar febrile performance and pegged 105.9F. After her dose of Ibuprofen. OmegaMom, who doesn't give a fever of 104+ much thought anymore, just stuffs the cheeild full of Tylenol or Ibuprofen, immediately hollered to OmegaDad, requesting help with dumping OmegaDotter into the bathtub to see if it would kick-start the meds. OmegaDotter, who normally bounces and plays and has a grand ol' time in the bathtub with various ducks, Willies (killer whales) and zebras, just sat in the middle of the tub, shivered, and whimpered. Off to the ER we went. Five hours and many medical pats on the head later, we got home. While in the ER, our dotter treated the various medical staff to her best imitation of a banshee crossed with a very strong octopus. The ER doctor (Mr. OmegaMom asked me in an aside, "Since when do they allow pretty 14-year-old girls to be doctors???"), kept patting OmegaMom on the knee and saying, "My husband calls it 'Baby Rodeo'. She's not strange--lots of little kids do this. You're doing fine. If she's this active with a high fever, This Is Good." Mr. OmegaMom decided that we need to videotape any ER visits in the future, so we can discourage horny 17-year-old males when the time comes..."Why, yes, son, this is what she is really like...is there a problem?" He thinks it might be better than a shotgun. I just kept expecting OmegaDotter's head to start whirling on her neck and her to grate out, "REDRUM! REDRUM!" ER observations: The ER was full of various flu victims and their families. Then there was the gal who Mr. OmegaMom and I suspect had been beaten by her boyfriend, and the nice (young!) police officer who was taking her particulars...this made us very sad. There was the hispanic family who put telenovelas on on the TV (Mr. OmegaMom's comment on the soaps: "Big-haired men kissing big-lipped women."). There was the guy in the cubicle next to ours, who had apparently been punched in the head; the doctor and nursing staff were trying to persuade him to have a CAT scan ("Sir, it's just like a long x-ray--a machine rotates around you for five minutes and you're done." "How much is this gonna cost? I can't afford any of these things!"). And OmegaDotter constantly asking, "Can we go home? I want to go HOME!", with the last words rising up into a screech. All is better, for the nonce. I am home with dotter. We slept until 10. Mr. OmegaMom somehow found the titanium spine to wake up after a mere 2.5 hours of sleep and drag his ass into work. This parenting stuff is tough.