Sunday, July 20, 2008

4th of July 2008 Lake Webster

They weren't the best fireworks I've ever seen. It really didn't matter though. Maybe it was the armada of pontoons anchored to the weedy lake bottom. All in wait like an outdoor drive-in theatre in the lake. Watching the day slowly layer with deeper shades of night. A fingernail crescent moon hanging. Eli and Sam persistently questioning "When, when are they going to go??" Then the first sizzling fuse climbs the dark sky to a long awaited boom. Don't get me wrong, it was a good show, but the best thing for me was the experience. The kids, the boat, the lake, the misquitos, a moment in time. Wish Amy had been there.

Of course after it was over, they were ready to go home as you'll hear in the second video. And Sam had to pee. We'll just say that she didn't make it to shore before that happened. Good thing she was still wearing a pull-up.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

The Penny


He swallowed the penny to catch the fly. I don't know why he swallowed the fly.

Actually he didn't swallow the penny to catch the fly. He swallowed it up as a re-enactment of Mr Crabbs. Mr Crabbs, you know SpongeBob works for him. And Mr Crabbs is money OBSESSED. He LOVES money.

So Eli was doing just that. Going crazy with money. Coins that is. In his mouth. A bunch of them apparently. And as he was going crazy lie Mr Crabbs as he describes, he swallows a penny. Well, we didn't know it at the time, but when it came hurtling up like a change machine spitting out coins, I saw that it was a penny. The exact coin you see above.

Kids just make a lot of mistakes. As if adults don't. But these are type of mistakes that cause emergency room visits. The kind that cause stitches. The sort of innocent, yet quickly learned, mistakes that you don't often repeat. I don't think Eli wil be swallowing any more spare change.

Amy stopped off at MedCheck. This was after we called to see what to do. They said go to the ER. But not ringing the alarm bells, MedCheck was a safe bet. They basically said wait it out, which is what we did. He said the middle of his chest was sore. Probably from the coin turning and perhaps scraping the esophogus. As it turns out, I'm fairly certain that after three days it DIDN'T make it to the stomach. But it did, as I said, get ejected on the family room rug.

I believe it was in his esophagus. Everything, thankfully, worked out or worked itself out. If Eli had made it to the ER, he would have likely faced surgery. Instead it's just a small, but important, episode in his life. He even made it through a birthday party not being able to gobble down cake. Too hard. Hard stuff hurt going down and didn't stay down. Guess that should have been a clue to us that it wasn't in his stomach. Like I said worked out. Wshew.

In an age where success may be dependant on technology and effective use of it, I have created this blog for my son, Eli. He is five. I hope that this will be an avenue for him to explore, learn, have fun, and excel in a way that many of us never knew as kids.