You know the saying kids and pets always get sick on the weekends, holidays, or Friday night at 6 PM…well add on the day of a huge snow storm and you can see how 2014 started for the Chocolate family.

On the 3rd day of the New Year, we woke up greeted by this:

And this… a baby with a temperature of 103.5.

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After speaking to the doctor’s office they recommended we take Juliet in to be seen since the fever was so high and she was so young.  Mr. Chocolate had to madly shovel the driveway as fast as he could and then the whole family jumped into the car to take Juliet to the doctor (I didn’t feel comfortable driving and was worried about getting stuck ).

Juliet seemed to perk up at the doctor’s office and by the time we were done with the appointment, her fever had dropped to 101.3 and she was diagnosed with… a cold.  The doctor thought she might have had an ear infection, but her ears were perfect. Everything else checked out and besides the high fever and slight runny nose, she was deemed to be perfect in every way.  ,Juliet, a regularly fussy baby normally, was also in one of the most delightful moods of her life smiling, cooing, and chatting away as she was examined causing the doctor to say “This baby is too happy to be really sick!”  The doctor then said maybe something would show up later and that we should watch her and give her baby  ibuprofen to lower the fever if needed, but overall he felt her body had an over-exaggerated response (the high fever) to a seemingly innocuous cold.

We returned home relieved our little girl was doing ok and laughed at that of course she would get sick on the day we had one of the biggest snows storms of the season. Throughout the day we checked Juliet’s fever and it never spiked up that high again.  Around bed time I was starting to get a bit of a cough and feeling a bit under the weather. After we put Drake and Juliet to bed I mentioned not feeling so great to Mr. Chocolate, who replied he too was starting to cough and not feel so hot.

We went to bed and the next morning both Mr. Chocolate and I were full on sick, coughing, fever, aches, runny noses, the works.  I don’t even remember much of that day as Mr. Chocolate and I tried to take turns on and off caring for the kids, trying to rest, and basically trying to get through the day in one piece.  The next morning we both felt even worse and we called my mother to take Drake for the day so that we only had one child to care for, as well as hoping to spare Drake this terrible sickness.  In the midst of all these wonderful symptoms I also developed mastitis and had to call to get antibiotics stat as I literally felt like I was dying between the cough that wouldn’t stop, the pain in my breasts, and the neverending chills from the fever.  Monday rolled around and Mr. Chocolate had to stay home from work. Tuesday Drake woke up coughing with a fever and runny nose and eventually he, Juliet, and I spent the day laying in the big bed watching non-stop Baby Einsteins.

As luck would have it both kids recovered within a day or two leaving, Mr. Chocolate and me dragging as we tried to recover while also caring for two children.  I was the last to fully heal, probably because I was battling the mastitis as well as still waking to nurse at night and spending most of my days caring for the kids when Mr Chocolate returned to work.  So we haven’t had the best start to the new year for the Chocolate family… hopefully the rest of the year brings us better luck!

Has your entire household ever gotten sick at the same time?