Henry! Don't stick legos in...

What's that? I know you're asking yourself that. Well, THAT is a lego ax for a little lego man. I took a picture of it next to my hair band to give you an idea of its size. It's pretty skinny. So. Henry. Wait, let me first remind you of Keith's experience with a lego. Ok, you remember that incident? Well, fortunately, this lego was cheaper. Mostly since we haven't gone to the doctor yet lol. Anyways, I was watching tv and Henry was playing in the foyer. I look over at him, and he's sticking that lego ax into his ear. Stick side first. I say "HENRY! Don't stick legos in...." and he goes WHAM and slams it into his ear. And then screams hysterically. I almost threw up lol - it really looked like it hurt!! Ed came running over and pulled it out - about an inch of the lego ax was in his ear. Fortunately it wasn't bleeding or draining any fluid or anything, so we'll be checking in with the pediatrician tomorrow morning. He keeps telling me "my ear hurt bad" and insisted on a band aid for it, but it seems okay. He's been complaining about the toenail he ripped off (unrelated incident) more. I'm pretty sure I see yet another gray hair.

The Splinter Saga

Keith got a splinter in his foot Monday morning - he was running around with his brother, we have hardwood floors... you see where I'm going with this? Anyways, Ed managed to get a HUGE chunk out of his foot Monday, and we could see that there was a little sliver left in his foot, but Keith was downright hysterical and it was pretty deep, so we thought we'd give it a little while. Had his soak his foot in Epsom salts, put some Neosporin on it... we did this a couple of times Monday, and then a couple of times Tuesday before school. Tuesday he goes to school, and the nurse called me to tell me his foot looked horrible and was infected. Um, oops. Before you give me the bad mom award, please know I have 1. a foot hangup and 2. a splinter hangup so I was trying not to look too closely at his foot. Ed and Keith were in charge of putting Neosporin on it. She suggested we take him in to the pediatrician. I call, get him an appointment that afternoon, and take him in. Oh, I forgot to mention, I don't currently have any insurance. I *could* COBRA our old insurance, but it's $1000 a month, so I'm hoping I don't have to. I have until 3/5 to decide though. Back to the story. I call my brother and beg him to take Henry for me, because the thought of taking all three kids to the pediatrician for an infected foot which you KNOW she's going to poke at was not on the top of my to do list. Oh, did I mention this was all happening in the middle of that snowstorm? Yeah. Adam was kind enought to agree to watch Henry, so I took him over there and then got Keith to the doctors. Sure enough, his foot was infected. Sure enough, she wanted to look at it. Key word there - LOOK. Not TOUCH, LOOK. Keith was NOT having it. He flipped out, screaming and crying and carrying on, the doctor was looking at me like *I* could reason with him, I'm trying to console a crying Caroline and convince Keith that SHE WAS NOT GOING TO TOUCH THE FOOT. Didn't work. So the doctor gave up, said put him on some antibiotics and come back on Thursday. At least she didn't tell me to take him to the ER where they had restraints, right? Because if she had I think I would have had a breakdown. So I pay them (cough cough seventy dollars cough cough) and load 2 out of 3 kids into the car and go get Henry. Take them all home, dump them off with Ed, and go to the pharmacy. I give the pharmacist the prescription and she says "is your insurance info the same?" and I said "no, actually, I don't have any. Can you get me the generic please?" Twenty minutes later, my debit card is smoking from the $89.99 charge at the pharmacy for a GENERIC ANTIBIOTIC. Yeah. Fast forward to today. We go back to the doctors, with all the kids this time. And Ed, because the doctor asked for two parents to be there to hold Keith down when she tried to get the rest of the splinter out. So we get in the room, I give Caroline to the receptionist, and the doctor gets the tweezers out. And, again, all hell breaks loose. The nurse comes in and gets Henry, because Keith is screaming and Henry is crying and did I mention all hell was breaking loose? Funniest part was Keith calmed down enough to catch his breath and said "Are you going to get my splinter?" when the doctor was halfway done digging around in his foot. I guess it didn't hurt as bad as he was letting on! So she pulls out about six little tiny splinters, puts the tweezers down, and looks at his foot again. Says "I really think there's more in there, squeezes it a little, and a ONE INCH SPLINTER comes out of his foot!!!! NO WONDER IT WAS INFECTED!!!! So now, all is well in the land of Keith's foot. He's got antibiotics in his system, neosporin on his foot, and no more splinters. His mom is broke, but I think it was money well spent!

So. Poison Control.

I've never needed the number for poison control before in my life, until this week. Of course, with Henry, you would think I'd be prepared and have it on speed dial. Well, now I do. On Thanksgiving morning we were getting some food ready to take to my mom's, and Henry was playing in the dining room. The room NEXT TO the kitchen. Approximately 5 feet away. Of course, it got too quiet. So I go to check on him, and he's pointing to his mouth with the look of "I don't like what I'm eating and I'm going to spit it out so you better stick a hand under my mouth pronto or it'll hit the floor." So, being the good mother I am, I stick my hand under his mouth. And he spits. And spits. And spits. But, there's no food. Then, I realize he's smelling awfully, I don't know, rosy. And I look on the window sill (the high ones, above the breakfast bar), and my little jar of fragrance oil with the sticks (I have no idea what the technical name would be) is not where it's supposed to be. Instead, there's a puddle on the breakfast bar, a dining room chair, and the floor. And I guess a puddle in Henry's mouth, which he's trying his damnedest to spit out. So I go and hit up google and get poison control's number, call them up, explain what happened and they say "Oh, he should be fine." Praise the Lord. I was NOT feeling an emergency room trip on a holiday.
So, fast forward to today. Everyone was up bright and early at 4am this morning (yes, THAT'S a whole other story), so at about 10am I put Henry down for a nap. He, apparently, had other ideas, and proceeded to find the little jar of Vicks Vaporub which was on his changing table (yes, *I* know that's a stupid place for it. Key word there *I*), open it, and eat it. And rub it in his hair. And in his eye. And then proceed to scream bloody murder. I'm thinking menthol stuff in the eye hurts. So I get him, notice the minty smell about him and the bright red eye and the greasy mouth. And go look up the number of poison control again. Apparently, eating Vicks Vaporub won't kill you (at least if it's less than a couple tablespoons), but rubbing it in your eye can seriously mess your eye up. So they told me to flush Henry's eye out with water for fifteen minutes (TWO YEAR OLD. SCARED OF RUNNING WATER. Fun, I tell you.) and then take him to the emergency room. So we do that, wait for a couple of hours to see a doctor, and Henry gets some dye in his eye to check for a chemical burn. Fortunately there was no sign of a chemical burn, but he looked pretty funny with his dyed eye.

Henry vs. the stairs, round 17

Henry's been having an issue with the stairs, lately. He has a permanent bruise on his forehead and a couple of banged up knees. He seems to forget that there's one last pesky step all the time and ends up missing it. And THEN, his dear, sweet older brother decided he was going to sneak up behind Henry and scream and scare Henry today. Didn't bother to think that maybe scaring Henry when he's standing on the landing at the top of the steps might not be such a great idea. So, a flight of stairs later, Henry's got a bigger bruise and a cut chin and scraped up knees. I'm thinking about wrapping him in bubble wrap.

Legos

So. Legos. Keith has discovered Legos, in more ways than one. A few months ago he was over at his grandparents and, being the good grandparents they are, they unloaded all of Uncle Adam's legos out of the basement for Keith to play with. I wish I had the picture - their dining room was CARPETED in legos. And, of course, being the slightly obsessive child that he is, Keith convinced Grandpa that they had to sort out all of the 1,000,000 legos into the original sets. Fortunately, he inherited that obsessive gene from his grandparents, because they still had all of the original paperwork from all of those sets. I think there were approximately 100,000 sets. So they sorted. And sorted. And sorted. Keith wouldn't come home, because they were having so much fun sorting. Eh, whatever floats the kid's boat. Anyways, all that sorting started a love affair with legos. Now, instead of Cars, every time we're at the store we have to check out the Lego aisle. And Keith keeps his different lego creations out on random surfaces and calls them his 'set ups' and God forbid you move one of his set ups.

He also has the toddler sized legos - I think they're called Duplex? I can't remember - it's been a while since I've looked at them in the store. He plays with those, religiously, too. Usually in his room. So a couple of weeks ago, Duplex legos were strewn all over his room, and he was building things (with his IMAGINATION, mom!) and creating things and not picking up the spare lego parts. Fast forward to that evening. Ed gave Keith a bath, wrapped him up in a towel (arms included - this is important), and sent him off into his room to get dressed. Keith walks into his room, trips on the edge of his rug, and with his arms wrapped up had no way to catch himself. So he landed chin first on.... you guessed it....

A LEGO.

Otherwise known as a damn expensive Lego. I hear all hell breaking loose upstairs and thought that Keith was just throwing a fit about having to get out of the bath. Then I hear Ed yelling "AMY! GET UP HERE!" and I run upstairs to see Keith hysterical and blood pouring out of his chin. So it was off to AI DuPont for stitches. 4 shots of lidocaine and 5 stitches later, Keith was mostly upset about missing his favorite cartoon.



(And can someone explain the 'injured Keith pose'? Every injury picture I have of the boy is the same pose!)

Watch out for lions!

Or else you might end up looking like this...



Please ignore the peanut butter mouth. He was eating when I insisted I needed to take a picture RIGHT NOW! So, Keith and Henry were at the babysitter's on Thursday. Actually, they were with the babysitter but at someone else's house, but they were happy about that because the someone else had a big ole slide in the living room. You know, THOSE cool parents. So, Keith, being a five year old boy, decided that he had to go UP the slide the wrong way. Babysitter says 'you know Keith, that's not such a good idea,' Keith looks at her like 'yeah, well, I'm 5 and I'm invincible,' and proceeds to fall off the slide somehow, land in a closet (yeah, I don't know either), and damn near poke his eye out. So the babysitter called me, as I was pulling up to work. I, caring mother I am, ask if she'd take HER kid to the ER, she says no, I talk to Keith to try, unsuccessfully, to calm him down, and tell the babysitter I'll call Ed to get him. I did care, really!!!

So Friday, I take Keith to school. He gets in line, says hi to his teacher, and she says "KEITH!!! What happened to your face???" Keith's answer?



"I was attacked by a lion."



Said with a straight face even. Gotta love the imagination.