The Penny

What is a blog for if not to write about the most intimate moments in the life of your family.  I mean who can keep up with all that baby book business, dates of the first teeth coming in, dates of the first teeth being lost, vaccinations, first words, gifts and their givers from each birthday celebration.  The thought is exhausting.  It's a good thing I have boys who would probably toss the books in a box in an attic for the duration of their lives only to be damaged by the elements and disintegrate before ever being looked at again.  At least that's what I'm hanging my hat on to avoid the guilt from all the dates and firsts I've missed writing down in the past 6 years

However, I have decided this memory book item should live in the annuls of our family story.  If not for my benefit, for Duke's so that one day if his child should decide to make the same error in judgement he did two weeks ago today, perhaps he will be ahead of the game in resolving it.

Yes, I'm talking about The Penny.

And for those facebook friends that found it a bit repulsive that I continued to update our progress in locating The Penny, I say to you, too bad.  Yes I too find some posts by others meet the TMI standard far to often, but in the process of the past two week's events, well, the posts and comments to them were the only entertaining piece of my life I could hold on to.

So, The Penny.  It entered our family innocently enough, from the change slot in my center console.  Retrieved by Duke and held on to during our drive home that evening as if it were a shiny gold doubloon from Jake and the Neverland Pirates themselves.  I faintly remember him snatching it and even more faintly remember getting out of the car and walking in the house with his luggage for the day.  I do remember telling the boys no less than three times to turn back around and gather their items from the car before getting in the shower, since it was 7pm and bedtime was on the horizon.

And then it happened, just after that third "Go back to the car and get your book bag and anything else you've left and put it up."  Duke looked up at me, near terror in his eyes, "I JUST SWALLOWED THE PENNY!"

"WHAT PENNY?!?!?!?!"

"THE PENNY, IN MY MOUTH..."

(and yes, all caps BECAUSE WE WERE SHOUTING)

"WHAT PENNY IN YOUR MOUTH...WHY WAS THERE A PENNY IN YOUR MOUTH??!??...YOU ARE FIVE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH A PENNY IN YOUR MOUTH??!!??!?"

"AM I GOING TO HAVE TO HAVE SURGERY TO GET IT OUT?  I DON'T WANT THEM TO CUT IT OUT OF ME!!!!!

Insert here...Mom slapped back into reality.

"Buddy, wait, I'm sorry, it's going to be OK.  You are not going to have to have surgery."  (Thinking...he's not choking, he's talking, WOW that sucker went right down quick!)

Duke, eyes WIDE at me, "BUT HOW WILL IT COME OUT?!?!??"

And there my friends is where the journey began.

As a precaution I did call the after hours offices and leave a message for a nurse who couldn't give any medical advice over the phone but who did reassure me that likely since he had no problem with swallowing it, that it would "reappear" in due time.

Well, since I am a Type A control freak (shocking to all of you I know), I knew immediately what this meant, 24/7 monitoring of Duke in hopes of payment in kind.

The next morning, naively hopeful, I kept him at the office with me. Loaded with workbooks, pencils and his Leappad, off we went. After a check in call to the pediatrician it was decided an X-ray would be wise to verify the penny had indeed traveled to its first needed destination, Duke's tummy.  So after a quick visit to Children's South we got this

Confirmation!

We managed until 2pm when the Alabama snow sent us off to pick up his brother and avoid the hassles of driving in flurries. You have not truly experienced weather related chaos until you've lived through the threat of snow in Alabama. And since there was zilch on the reappearance indicator, it was a fine dinner of brown rice, broccoli and chicken and promises that we'd have that ole coin the next day!  Right?!

Ummm, no, and not the next, the next, the next...you get the picture. On top of it, although Cory returned from his traveling adventures Friday and kept Duke with him so I didn't have to play Mom at the office, he wasn't feeling all that well and when he woke up Saturday and drove straight to Urgent Care my fears were confirmed - Flu.  Great, so my 3 days of having him home since the 1st turned into 3 days of solo parenting with an added bonus of being tied nearly constantly to the house to await The Penny.  And on the one occasion it might have appeared, I got the added pleasure of confirming whether or not it did with the aid of a plastic fork and a gas mask.

Monday, being MLK Day meant the kids were off school and since Cory was on the road again (have I mentioned my severe dislike for all things Willie Nelson)...me, kids, working from home and The Penny.  Not an ideal combination at the level my patience had reached. However, based on the days "results" it was fairly certain I'd be ok in sending him to school for the morning and picking him up at 11:45 carpool to observe the rest of the day's progress.  And nothing...

And on we went through the week, one day with me at the office, one morning at school, me leaving early.  I'm not even going to tell my sob story of all the work I was behind on and how working from home with two kids meant me either letting them zone out in front of the TV or Leappad or supervising them attempting to get their chores finished in about 10 times the length of time it would take for me to just do them myself.  (Growing character and preparing them for the real world is higher on my priority list however.  That and making sure my future daughter in laws will worship me for what great husbands they found.)

By Friday afternoon, I was what I can only classify as A COMPLETE WRECK.  Buried under at the office with major deadlines looming the following week, patience weary to the point of nonexistence and severely stressed about why The Penny was taking so long to meander out of my child's body.  On top of this,the longer The Penny remained, the more concern and questioning from Duke.  It was apparent by at least the one week mark that he too was concerned The Penny may have decided his intestines were a better resting place than his piggy bank.

So on the drive home Friday afternoon after picking up Jack (early again) when Duke started complaining of his stomach hurting, panic set in.  !!! Obviously The Penny hasn't appeared because it's now lodged itself into his large intestine and is eating away at the lining which will cause lifelong pain and anguish and mean I will have only one shot at grandchildren of my own - and that from the son who has assured me he never wants to get married, only build a house across the lake from us so he can come and have breakfast with me everyday.  (Whole other blog post right there).

Ok, maybe not that panicked, but definitely worried enough to get him home quickly to see if it's pain that might be ready to produce The Penny, or something else.  After 30 minutes of observation, I felt a call to the doc was probably in order.  And his advice?  Err on the side of caution and drive back to Children's South (ironically next door to their school where we were 2 hours prior) and have another look see.  And this is what we looked and see'd...

So Friday night, Cory reenters life at Sterling Creek Ranch and yet The Penny eludes.  It's at this point I realize that I have been a ball of stress, barely hanging onto my sanity.  Well that, and also the fact I've agreed to take Duke and a friend to their classmates birthday party on Saturday morning, at the zoo.  The wonderful, exciting but not so neutral smelling, Birmingham Zoo. Where the possibility of The Penny making it's appearance is probably a 4 on a scale of 1 to 5 in timing a reappearance.  Plastic forks get packed in the purse.  Fantastic.

Apparently God is a kind and loving being, for He did not bless me with the opportunity to fork through a toilet in a public restroom (at least this go around).  We had a great time at the party - one that was not going to be missed since it was highlighted with an appearance by Chris and Martin Kratt of PBS's "Wild Kratts" and had one little boy quite in awe of meeting someone that's "really on TV!"

But that evening, in not so amazing fashion as it started, The Penny did appear.  To both Duke's delight, "Dad I pooped it out!  Wanna see????!!!!"  And my relief, literally.

And so my friends, although I never thought I would surpass this post on pooping, Duke did it, again.

The Car, Where Imagination Lives

I'm not a fan of preschoolers with technology. I know that a little bit of time spent on the computer or iPhone can be educational and in the right place and at the right time, we set limits. But we aren't a DS family, and the only time it's allowed in the car are on extended travel trips, and even then, it's the DVD player for a movie.

It's a rule I set when they were just toddlers, mainly because due to our commute, we spend more than your average amount of time on weekdays in the car. And secondly because I heard a story once about a 16 year old that passed their drivers exam only to get lost finding their way out of their subdivision because he had spent the previous 12 years with his nose pressed into an electronic game or watching a DVD player non stop and let me say, not gonna be my kid someone else blogs about.

I even go so far as to keep the radio off most of the time. I have my two boys strapped in their seats for an uninterrupted minimum 45 minutes a day, and by God I'm going to use it to my advantage. Granted, most days that involves at least one threat of me pulling over the car if the arguing doesn't stop and there has been more than one ocassion that my hands were gripping the wheel so tightly to avoid screaming "SHUT UP!!!" at the top of my lungs - all while listening to one or the other sob incessantly because I denied them a free cookie at the Publix bakery after they had spent the 45 minute trip through the store pummeling one another in the seat of the grocery cart.

But some days, it's a blessing and we get to talk about the "beautiful colors" - penned by Duke, of the sunrise or sunset or Jack asks a question about whether something he witnessed at school was right or wrong and why and we talk about what our family stands for and the reasons we might do things differently than other families. But mostly, it's the steering wheel thing...

Today however was a "wish I had a tape recorder handy" drive.

It started innocently enough, both asking for the old, long battery dead, flip phones that I've thrown into their toy box - two of them had migrated this week into the car. What I next witnessed nearly brought me to laugh out loud. And make note, there is no actual power to either phone.

"Beep, boop, beep. I'm going to be the yellow Ironman with a jet pak"

"Yeah, me too, no wait, Ironman can't be yellow. I'm downloading Mario Cars 7"

"Oh yeah, is it done yet?"

"No, you have to wait...ok, it's downloaded. Beep, boop, beep.. yea! I'm on the top of the building!"

"I'm playing Battleship."

"You have Battleship on your iPhone? That's cool, did you download it?"

"Yeah, it's cool. Beep, boop, CRASH! I got it! You got to play this game Jack! It's awesome!"



And for the next 10 minutes, the two of them PRETENDED to play IMAGINARY games on BROKEN old phones INTERACTING with one another the entire time. And it ended with this...

"I'm turing off my iPhone, I've had enough time on it today."

"Yeah, it's time for it to be put up."

This is what this tech saavy Mom, who spends more than her share of her work day on a computer either progamming or teaching others how to interact with techonology and who wants to be especially careful that her kids grow up to be able to have a dinner conversation at a restaurant with the other people at the table rather than showing off the tops of their heads as they are bent over a screen, calls a successful drive home. I know I cannot completely avoid techonology in our lives, and I don't want to, but I can delay it and control it's appearance when it's appropriate and beneficial.

WIN!

My Hoarder

It started with green cherry tomatoes. My token patio cherry tomato plant two years ago never seemed to have ripened fruit. Then one day I noticed Duke with his hands in his pockets lingering near said pot.

"What-cha got there buddy?"

"Nothing..."

"Take your hands out of your pockets."

"I don't want to."

"Please :):)"

"Oh! Ok!" my naive 2 1/2 year old complies. And ther are the 5 green tomatoes I'd been watching for a week.

Next it was school toys, mega blocks to be exact. Who knew he could fit this many in one 4T size pocket?

And since it's been spent day lily seed heads, fall acorns (made for a nice base for my holiday candle decor) but today it became useful...fresh blackberries!
Keep on a picking' Duke and I might have enough for a pie!

Hoarding, it's his favorite thing.  That and this...but that's for another post, or his wedding day.  I have PLENTY for the slide show.