IE7 hover over a div when you touch the child of that div

In theory

I have a div (container) that appears when dropped over one of its child divs (dropdown). The dropdown contains images of links, etc., and when I leave it and the container, the dropdown disappears.

<div id="container">
  <div>Hover over me to see extra stuff</div>
  <div id="drop-down">
     <div>
       <img />
     </div>
     <div>
       <a />
       <p><span>Info</span><span>More</span></p>
     </div>
     <img />
  </div>
</div> 

      

        
        
        
      

    

This is what jQuery looks like

$('#container').hover(
  function(){ $(this).find('#drop-down').addClass('hover'); },
  function(){ $(this).find('#drop-down').removeClass('hover'); }
);

      

        
        
        
      

    

Here is the CSS for the hover

#container #drop-down {left: -9999px;}
#container .hover {left: 0;}

      

        
        
        
      

    

On practice

In every browser other than IE7, it works fine, but when I highlight the spaces in the first containing div in the dropdown, then the drop-down disappears for some reason, as if I left the container.

Question

I have been banging my head against the wall for almost 3 hours now trying to find all the errors I could check if they were appropriate, but unfortunately no luck. I originally thought it might be a "z-index" problem, but since it actually appears above the content below, it can't be (and I tried it by setting "position: relative; z-index: 9999;" ; both on p and on spans). Other than that, I'm completely stumped. However, I know that any elements below that div (like the image tag in the above example) create a problem after traversing around the spans at the p's position.

Further clarification: I found it to do the elements underneath the spans, but since they don't show, I have no idea how to fix this. Also, it doesn't matter what element is under it, only if there is a div underneath that you can "enter" (ie you are not in it yet), then you lose hover and the dropdown disappears.

I know I have not supplied the CSS, but can anyone think of any reason why this might be happening? Also, I disabled all CSS working directly on it and this is still affected, but this is the problem.