What a pleasant evening we had tonight. We both got home at a reasonable hour, and we spent good, quality time with Chloe and Sophie. I didn’t look at the computer once, and my withdrawal wasn’t so bad. Just some sporadic tremors.

The best part was that I think my discussion with Chloe about her needing to make choices regarding how she spends her time before bed actually made an impact. Chloe created a schedule for herself – carving out a good hour every evening for “playing with family.”

Whether her partner in playtime crime be Sophie, our babysitter, Papa, Grammy or me, she will be playing with at least one of us before bed. She hasn’t sacrificed her TV shows – she’s just organizing her time. We’ll see how she does. But I’m glad she took our conversation to heart.

In the meantime, little Sophie is on a “dude!” kick. She’s not a dude, or even a dudette – and neither is Chloe. But my husband and I are dudes. Sometimes we’re “poops.” I obviously prefer the former. Chloe obviously prefers the latter. Kids will be kids, after all.

Sophie is now a repeat offender – escaping from her crib for the second day in a row. The thud following her jump was louder than yesterday’s and I half expected to hear bawling as soon as she hit the ground.

Happily, she didn’t cry. Instead, she served as the household’s rooster, announcing to all of us that it was time to wake up and start the day. And this, after an interrupted night’s sleep thanks to Chloe, who noisily came into our room at 4 am following a nightmare. Neither of our girls has mastered the art of tiptoeing.

As a result of recent developments, we went bed shopping today. We saw something quite fun – a loft-type bed with a little staircase and lots of storage underneath. Chloe very magnanimously offered to give Sophie her bed in exchange for the one in the store. We laughed.

But we did see another one we liked – much more traditional, and one that wouldn’t make Chloe green with envy if we bought it for Sophie. We haven’t ordered it yet, but we realize we’re going to have to order a bed soon, before there’s one thud too many…

Of course, as soon as she said it, she started to laugh hysterically. And of course, she attempted to get Sophie to repeat the word. Sophie refused to comply, however, because Sophie is above using such language for cheap laughs.

[By the way, Sophie was back to her usual cheerful, non-feverish self this morning. But she doesn’t have strep. Which still leaves a mystery as to what caused her crazy spike in fever yesterday. We’ll take her to our regular pediatrician on Saturday, just so she can have a look. I really could do without mysteries like that.]

It turns out that Chloe learned that word from a friend. I asked her if they used an equivalent word for girls’ privates, and so far, the answer is no. I realized during this exchange how isolated my husband must sometimes feel – a Frenchman among three females speaking American English and talking trash about wienies. Zut, alors!

It’s certainly not the first time Sophie’s been sick. But this was strange. She woke up this morning in a lovely mood, excited to go to her babysitter’s apartment and see her little friends. She ate a big breakfast and happily ran around the house.

About 1/2 hour after I arrived at my office, my cell phone rang. Generally it’s not particularly good news when my cell phone rings. I was in a meeting, however, and was unable to pick up the call. Then the office phone rang – it was my babysitter, concerned because after seeming fine, Sophie crawled into a play tunnel and started trembling. She was running a fever of 101.6 F. I packed up my things to leave and take her to the doctor, and while in the car about 20 minutes later, our babysitter called again. Fever up to 104.5 F. Not good.

I couldn’t take her to our regular pediatrician, who was out today and whose office is about 25 minutes from our house. And her back-up was just as far away. So we went to the local immedicare center – where the first nurse’s aide tried to take her temperature under the arm. That obviously didn’t work – does armpit temperature-taking ever work? What doctor even does that? I was starting to worry – thinking that maybe I should have taken her to the emergency room. Finally, another nurse came in with a rectal thermometer. Which would have been fine, except it was an old-fashioned mercury thermometer – the likes of which I haven’t seen since I was a kid. It took forever to get a reading, and after what seemed like days, and lots of Sophie tears, it came out at 102.2 F.

The doctor took a throat culture, and we’ll know tomorrow if it’s strep. In the meantime, Sophie has started antibiotics (getting her to swallow it was another adventure), and spent most of the day sleeping. She seemed a little better this evening, and ate a bit and drank a lot, too.

The only good thing about kids being sick is that they’re generally more willing than usual to be cuddled and hugged. Sophie slept on me for almost an hour this afternoon. A lovely, but fortunately rare occurrence. I hope it’s the last time that happens for a while.