Balloon Trick

My boys went to a birthday party on Sunday. They each came home with a goodie bag and in the pouch, along with a bunch of candy, were bags of marbles. I began to panic. Could my boys at age 9 play with marbles? Is this a suitable toy for my two youngest children? After just a few seconds I decided absolutely not and confiscated these seemingly harmless small spherical toys made of brightly colored glass. While most people consider them nostalgic and aesthetically pleasing, at my house they are cause for child protective to come-a-knockin'.

For reasons unbeknownst to me, my kids like to eat things that are not eatable. When my oldest was in preschool he found a penny at preschool. While "napping" on his cot it "fell" into his mouth and got stuck. I called the doctor who said most times these things pass (ewww) but to bring him in for an x-ray. Sure enough, stuck it was, in his esophagus. Bummer! An emergency room visit and a nifty tube through his nose and down his throat while a balloon was inflated to urge the bugger up and out of his mouth again and PRESTO, the penny is now taped in his baby book (what the heck else was I supposed to do with it? Spend it?). Then years later my daughter was laying on the floor of the family room when one of the twins tossed a quarter into her mouth - I pictured it like a carnival game - since I wasn't right there, but slacking off sitting on the couch in another room eating bon bons. It too got stuck in her esophagus. Bummer. Back to the emergency room for what I thought was going to be the easy tube balloon trick. Nope! This earned us a ticket for an over night stay in the hospital and an endoscopic procedure with anesthesia the next morning. That quarter is in my dresser drawer and not taped in my daughters baby book. If you are asking why not? then clearly you either don't have children or stopped at one. The second child has only a partially complete book and don't even ask about the third and fourth kids baby books!

So while I am bearing all about what a crappy mom I am and how odd my kids are... then there was the day in second grade where one of the twins came home and said "a bean fell into his ear!" Don't you just hate when that happens? So I got on the horn to make an appointment with the pediatrician, like a good and responsible mother, and while on hold the 8 year old decided to go into the bathroom and use a q-tip. Great! Now the poor doctor had to use the looooooong tweezers.

My kids are not allowed to touch marbles. I can only imagine what orifice they might stick them in!