a penny saved

On Sunday afternoon, Mother's Day, Benjamin swallowed a penny.

He came down from his bedroom, pretty panicked at first. Even after the penny had worked its way down his windpipe a bit, he was really agitated. Jeff was the first one "on the scene" and was wonderful. Very calm, he got Ben some bread to eat, hoping it would help ease the penny down, since it was clearly not going to come up.

Benjamin was extremely dubious. "But then it'll go into my stomach, and I might die!!" Jeff assured him that he would not die, but that the item in question would eventually be...(*cough*)...excreted. With this new information, Ben agreed to try the bread.

Meanwhile, Kyle calmly, and with great disinterest, says, "Excuse me, guys. Could you move? I need to get my milk." (the scene was being enacted in front of the refrigerator).

(Jeff's later interpretation of Kyle's attitude? "Aw, guys, you think this is dramatic? This is nothin'. Y'all are amateurs!" This seems pretty accurate, to me.)

So, the penny made its descent, and then Ben had some water to chase the bread down. We called the help line the doctor's office, just to make sure we'd covered all the bases. Ben was breathing fine, and he didn't seem to be experiencing any discomfort.

We were fairly certain that things would work out in the end.

You'd think that this scenario would be played out with the 3-year-old, or the orally-adventurous baby. But no, it was our experienced 6-year-old. Our oldest child was, fittingly enough, the first one to launch us into this situation.

Although he does tell us that it was Kyle who put the penny into his mouth. Kyle, for his part, claims he was trying to get the penny onto the bed, but the wind was too strong. Interesting.

Just one more investment which we're waiting to see work itself out...