A New Year

For such an uneventful New Year's Eve (we watched TV and both fell asleep on the couch at 11:45--ugh!), we had quite an exciting New Year's Day. Well, exciting may not be the best word to describe it. That would imply happy things, I think.
Does this picture look like happy things to you? To me it looks like an x-ray of Reese with my earring inside. That's right, Reese swallowed my earring. If you look closely, you can even see the loop of the back that is still on.

I don't mean to make light of this, although as time goes on, it does get slightly more funny. (Ok, I honestly can't look at this x-ray without smiling.) But, this was hands down the most scary thing I have experienced as a parent. Seeing the look on Reese's face as the earring was on its way down and the way that she cried as the reality of what happened hit me made my body shake. I immediately paged the on-call pediatrician and then called my dad, doing my best to keep my voice calm as I explained what had happened. My dad assured me that Reese would be fine, that people can swallow broken glass and be fine. (Incidentally, when the pediatrician called, she also said that people can swallow broken glass without it doing any damage--I'm guessing it's in a med school textbook somewhere.) After my dad put my mind at ease, we got off the phone and by this time Reese had calmed down--so much so that I started to wonder if she really did swallow the earring. We decided to go to the emergency room to get an x-ray to make sure the earring hadn't lodged anywhere and, more importantly, to make sure that it didn't go into her lungs. Reese was her normal, happy self and the nurses kept asking, "are you sure she swallowed it??" Sure enough, the x-ray doesn't lie.

I am happy to report that everything turned out well. Reese got her first x-ray, the earring has been recovered (luckily, Reese loves raisins) and we have gone into round two of serious baby-proofing. Our new year got off to a rocky start, but hopefully one day we will be able to look back on this and laugh...without feeling like horrible parents.