This weekend felt like the first day of spring after a long hard winter.  The sun was high in the sky with a cool breeze blowing.  The air felt light and there was no humidity.  It was the first time I can recall that it was not cold and raining during the Cherry Blossom Festival.  While it would have been nice to go out and take pictures of the brilliant blooms at their peak, I did not relish the thought of competing with my fellow humans.  I prefer a solitary existence or at least an existence where there are no crowds. 

But, I had cabin fever and needed to get out of the house as much as a bear needs to get out after a long hibernation.  My son has been alive for five months now and had yet to experience the great outdoors.  I suppose that is the problem with being born in the winter.  On Saturday I had an appointment to get a haircut so I decided to pack the family into the car and take them along.  After the necessary grooming, we walked across the street to a restaurant for an equally necessary meal.  It seemed to me that every parent who’s child was born around the same time as ours had the same idea.  The dining room quickly filled with strollers, high chairs, car seats and infants from the age of three months to one year.   

After the sustenance and baby watching, we walked a block down to the park along the river.  This is the park where Jennifer and I would come on dates when we first started courting.  My goal was to enjoy some sun and fresh air and to take pictures of Andrew outside since all the pictures so far have not only been indoors, but most have been inside our house.

Andrew was a bit cranky and seemed a little warm as I held him.  He often feels warm to me and I assumed the runny nose and cough were the leftovers of the respiratory infection he had that put him in the hospital.

He was cranky all night long and awoke frequently.  Sunday morning, as we were getting ready for church, I picked him up and noticed that he felt warmer than the day before.  The thermometer had his temperature at 102 degrees.  We called the pediatrician, who fortunately has office hours on the weekends as well as weekdays and nights.  She asked us to come into the office.  We noticed he was also struggling to breathe.  The doctor proclaimed, and we agreed, that this was a new virus and not the one he had before.  The symptoms were completely different from the previous illness.  He had never had a fever or runny nose with the other infection.  The doctor was at a loss as to what to do because he had just finished 10 days of antibiotics so she told us to go home and watch him.  She said she would call in the evening to check on him.  As we were packing up to leave the office she remarked on a whim that maybe we should give him a flu test.  Five minutes later, Andrew was diagnosed with the flu.  The doctor was excited about this because now she had something she could treat.  We picked up a prescription of Tamiflu from the pharmacy on our way home.  So far he has not gotten any worse and his fever has gone down - all good signs.

Today, Andrew’s pre-school emailed to inform the parents that three people (not including Andrew) had contracted the flu.