So we did end up taking Brynja in to the ER last night around 8:30.  Her fever just did not want to stay down, and we were starting to worry a little more about dehydration, so we left Olof’s mom in charge of the older kids and made the trip to town.

On the way there, it occurred to me that Friday night probably wasn’t the best time to visit the emergency room, and I was anticipating a long wait, but as it turned out there was hardly anyone there and we got in pretty quickly (I guess maybe we were early enough to miss the rush).  They took the baby’s temperature and a blood sample in short order, then gave her an acetaminophen suppository and set her up with a urine collection bag in hopes of getting a urine sample (fat chance, considering most of the reason we were there was that she hadn’t peed all day, but it was worth a shot).

After waiting for an hour or so for the pee that never came, we were sent home with a diagnosis of a non-specific infection, a prescription for a broad-spectrum antibiotic, and instructions to return if she got any worse (which she hasn’t, thankfully).

When we got back to our house not long past eleven, everything was quiet with the kids all sleeping peacefully in their beds, and you know, weighed against an evening spent running interference between Tage and Petra then fighting with them for an hour to just go to bed already, a couple of uneventful hours in the ER wasn’t really so bad.  I even managed to get a little reading done.