Viral Stew

Well we are in the throws of a "viral stew" as my pediatrician called it--all three of us are sick. Annie first came down with pink eye last week with a runny nose and cough. Sean left for a conference in California last weekend and was starting to feel sick right before he left. He ended up coming down with pink eye too the day before he had to present his research at the conference. So, I spent part of Monday calling our insurance to authorize him going to a walk-in clinic to get antibiotic drops for his eye. Then Tuesday night, Annie woke up in the middle of the night with a 101.7*F fever and has been coughing ever since. Her pink eye is mostly gone but she's still a bit goopy and has a really runny nose. Sean arrived home on Thursday afternoon after taking the red eye (no pun intended) home only to have me start throwing up late Thursday night. So we're all in the midst of this viral mod-podge of sorts. Sniffle, sniffle:)

Meanwhile, Annie continues to amaze us...and scare us too! I had class on Thursday so Sean watched Annie for me. Sean made the mistake of actually trying to go to the bathroom with the door closed and put Annie in the adjoining room thinking she would actually stay in the room while he was in the bathroom. He said he put her down in the den with some toys, went into the bathroom and shut the door and came out a few minutes later. Annie was no where to be seen--until he went around the corner and over to the stairs where he saw her little bum turning the corner UP THE STAIRS! In those few minutes, Annie had climbed up the stairs all by herself and gotten herself into our bedroom. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Well, once I ungripped my hands from Sean's neck and told him the cardinal rule of "never leave a child unattended", we both agreed we needed to get a gate at the bottom of the stairs ASAP. We have a gate at the top of the stairs but not at the bottom due to our banister. It is somewhat loose and therefore makes it difficult to put a pressure mounted gate there but we don't want to drill into the banister with a hardware mounted gate. Anyways, we're definately going to figure out a way to get a gate up this weekend since Annie's climbing could have been disastrous. I practically fainted when I found out. Now I see why people say it only gets harder when kids become mobile!
The infamous stairs--as you can see they are LONG and very steep. I shudder when I think what could have happened...thank goodness Annie is OKAY!