Summer Is Officially Over ...

... When Little A gets her first bad cold of the season and ends up at the doctor's office with what might be the beginning of yet another pneumonia. Or maybe not -- hard to tell what's happening in those lungs when Little A is screeching and batting away the pediatrician's stethoscope like it's a hot iron. (Why oh why do doctor appointments always end up right in the middle of naptime?)

On the doctor's recommendation, I took her home for a power nap after the appointment rather than going straight to the hospital radiology department. Hopefully the nap improves the odds that she'll stay calm during the chest Xray this afternoon, and we'll get a nice, nonblurry shot of her lungs. Right now we have no idea if the fast, shallow "belly breathing" I've watched her do in the last 24 hours is just a bad (but nonserious) cold, or something else that requires aggressive intervention.

It feels like eerie deja vu from the first time Little A got seriously ill last December. That time her illness began when we were about to go to Lake Tahoe for New Year's weekend and stay at a house we rented with friends. So in addition to being frantic about Little A's wheezing and coughing, I was worried and conflicted about whether to cancel the trip, and how that might impact Big A. We decided to postpone leaving by a day, then traveled after the pediatrician gave us the ok. But despite all our precautions, Little A ended up in the hospital for a week anyway, after a terrifying experience that cut the trip short.

This time instead of a Tahoe house rental, the illness coincides with an impromptu trip to Southern California that is supposed to begin this weekend. Sitting on my desk is an envelope containing nonrefundable Disneyland tickets that I only purchased a couple days before Little A got sick. We also have nonrefundable hotel reservations for inside the park and nonrefundable hotel reservations in San Diego for a few days after Disneyland -- a real splurge for us. Big A is apoplectic with excitement over this trip, and frankly so am I. We haven't gone on a real vacation that lasted more than a couple nights away from home in years. The idea we might have to cancel this due to a medical emergency so similar to the one that ended the last big getaway we tried for is something I'm trying not to think about. But of course, that just means the possibility of canceling the trip is the second-most frequent thought on my mind today, right behind "what's up with my girl's lungs this time?"

So. Off to radiology now -- wish us luck!