a determined penny

 

Yesterday, Keely got out her little bucket of pennies and was stacking them and playing with them. Then she took them on our bed and spread them out and starting jumping on them. It was fun. They slide around and cling together as she jumped. I thought, "What's the harm?"  I told her just not to throw them. She didn't. When she was done jumping she wanted to leave the pennies on the bed so she could show daddy her fabulous new game when he came home.  The pennies stayed. Later in the evening my parents stopped over for a brief visit. Keely had to show grandma the penny bed too. So my mom, Ryan, and Keely are in our bedroom. Keely is jumping. I'm in the dining room with my dad when I hear a frantic voice say, "KEELY!" and then some disturbing shuffling around and I knew something had happened. I thought she'd fallen off the bed. I ran back there to find my mom lifting Keely back up. Keely had her mouth open in wide scream and her fingers digging at her mouth. She let out an enormous scream with outstretched arms. I ran over to her and knew she'd swallowed a penny.  

Keely plays with all kinds of little things. She has for awhile. She is over 3. She doesn't put things in her mouth anymore and she didn't this time either. She was picking up handfuls of pennies and letting them "rain down". While she was doing this she tilted her head up and was laughing oh so happily with her mouth open. A *&#!$&  penny fell directly into her mouth and straight down her throat and she swallowed. You must be kidding me with this?  My mom and Ryan were right there and saw it happen. They didn't think she was doing anything dangerous and she wasn't really. It was just some freaky bad luck. What are the chances? So, the penny went in. My mom grabbed her off the bed and flipped her upside down and nothing came out, but she started crying so we knew she could breathe.  My parents left and we at first thought, it's alright. It'll pass through. Kids swallow stuff all the time. Then the paranoid us came out and we started thinking what if it gets stuck somewhere and doesn't just move through. What if in two days it's still in her airway and she suddenly can't breathe while she sleeps. Alrighty then, to the E.R. we go. I LOVE the E.R. What a fun place to be! All the desperately ill people, screaming children, angry faces, the waiting and trying to comfort your scared child. What a thrill. Everyone gently scolded Keely for putting a penny in her mouth. Nice. It was an accident! It fell into her mouth. That's hard to explain though. Then, people had to make corny comments like, "Are you a piggy bank?" "Hey, that's not where that goes?" & " I see you've increased your net worth."  Anywho. They said you definitely should come in and get an x-ray when kiddos swallow something so you can see where it is and make sure it is safely moving through. We got an x-ray. She was so brave although scared out of her mind. The nice x-ray lady let us back in the "super secret" room to view the x-ray. There it was. A big shiny circle sitting in her little belly.  Which was good news-ish. Then, we were sent to wait back into giant sick waiting room. We sat on the floor by the open entry doors. We are such germ-o-phobes.  Finally, we got a dr. who said since it was where it should-ish be that we should give it two days and see if it passes and if we don't see it- then come back for another x-ray. Fun. So at 10 o'clock we ran to our car, germ-x'ed our hands repeatedly, got home stripped all of our contaminated clothing off and burned them. O.k we put them in the wash and then repeatedly washed all 3 pairs of hands. Too much? I think not. We then tried to eat some dinner. Keely didn't want to eat because well, "There is a penny in MY belly!"

Yes there is and it'd BETTER come out! 
 
** Displaying our sophomoric weirdness again: During all of our waiting we tried to calm and entertain ourselves…comparing the staff and facilities to those of E.R the show, Grey's Anatomy, and House. Ya know…"OMG is that supposed to be Meredith? She is so not right for the part. Seriously." "So who's making out in the supply closet over there?" "You'd never be cast for the dr. roll buddy. The hair just isn't right. Sorry." "He would definitely not wear that on Grey's." "Should we be concerned that there's a Craftsman tool drawer chest (it really was) over there holding medical supplies?"   
 
***Displaying our babes weirdness: Our child was quite scared to be in medical land and I finally got her to just lay down on the E.R. bed. She is really heavy to hold for hours on end. Once she laid down, she immediately calmed down because she saw there was not one, but three heater vents above her… AND not just rectangle and circle ones like at our house, but the holy grail of heater vents…the much coveted…semi-circle heater vent. The angel's did sing. I'm not kidding. She so calmed down when she saw them and started chattering about them.