I mostly lurk on here but I need to whine a bit and I know you guys will understand.

Last year was our son's first Christmas; we planned to go to visit all my husband's family and spent some time carefully planning the schedule and arranging things so my husband could take time off from his work in a research lab. In the last week before we left, our plumbing broke, we all got pinkeye, and my son got a raging ear infection and then GI woes from the antibiotic used to treat the ear infection. We literally cancelled Christmas and essentially quarantined ourselves in our house. It was a bummer plus we felt massively guilty over missing family time.

To make things worse, when we tried again to do a family tour earlier this fall, little dude threw up one time the day before we left. He seemed fine hours later and totally normal the next day, so we shrugged our shoulders and went anyhow. We had to cut the trip short by days when I came down hard with whatever stomach bug he apparently shrugged off.

This holiday, kid is approaching 2 years old, he can actually understand a bit of the fun, he's past the break-in year of daycare illnesses, he's easier and more fun to travel with, so we ante up, plan a trip to the in-laws again, and get excited about it. My son was totally on his game all this weekend apart from sleeping more than usual . . . until this evening, when he gradually became cranky, refused to eat dinner, started acting massively tired, and started a fever in the last half hour before bedtime. I know there's still a possibility he'll shake whatever bug this is off in the next day or two, but whhhhhhhy.