Friday's Lesson For The Day...

Oh where to start.... the ER, the Pre-ER, a day at a glance....

Let's start with the girls are perfectly ok and ready to play all day. Last night was a different story.

After dinner, Dave cleaned the kitchen up while the girls played in the family room. I was across the street talking to a neighbor. When Dave was finished inside he took the girls with him to the store. He went out the garage door with them and I came in through the front door. As he drove away I noticed these little balls scattered on the floor. I started picking up a few of them and then noticed they were everywhere. I couldn't think of what toy we had that would contain such small little balls so I called Dave's cell when I realized these might in fact be lead balls. Panic attack!!! Dave didn't take his phone with him either. More panic..

I feverishly cleaned up all the balls that seemed to have landed everywhere while waiting for Dave to come home. I found the broken egg shaker toy too which was prompted packed up for the doctor to investigate. Dave drove up and I explained what I had found and that the balls may be lead. Smart Dave said that lead is not magnetic so let's see if they attach to a magnet and they did. Whew. One less thing to worry about. So he calls the doctor while I search for more balls and the nurse calls the poison people to see if they are ok with the possible steel balls in their stomachs. So the poison guy says that the steel itself is not harmful but they may have inhaled the balls into their lungs or what could be in their stomach could cause a blockage somewhere. In other words they both need to have x-rays taken.

Yeah, ok- back to panic attack. Hadn't even thought of steel balls in the lungs or blockage. It is also now almost 9 PM and they are getting crabby and tired. We put on their jammies and head to the ER. First of all Olivia hates hates hates to have her temperature taken at the doctor's so it stands to reason when the ER guy asks for a rectal temperature she screams so hard that she broke all the blood vessels around her eyes. Ava, on the other hand, was like, "hey buddy whatcha doin' back there?" So we move on from there to the x-ray room. Both girls do wonderfully on the table. Olivia saw the pillow and wanted to lay down and take a nap. Much better than the last time when she was x-rayed for eating part of her wooden crib.

Last stop was the doctor. Good news- we have two perfectly formed little girls with fancy new pictures to prove it. Not a small little steel ball in sight thank god. Ok- panic attack over. Egg shakers thrown in the trash now that this fiasco is over, and nothing else filled with anything will be entering our house. Whew. We stopped by a fast food place and got the girls a small cake for dessert for being such good troopers at the doctor and behaving so well past their bed time. They were in heaven eating their cake and Dave and I could go to sleep knowing everyone was ok.

So all that being said, I'd say the lesson for the day is there is no lesson. You can't watch your kid every single little second or they will become paranoid and neurotic. You just have to deal with whatever comes up and remain calm and don't jump to any big assumptions until you have something confirmed with your doctor.