My 4 1/2 year old found a little Tiffany’s pendent on the playground at school. She stuffed her new-found “treasure” into the pocket of her jeans, and was just as excited to rediscover it days later when the washing machine started sounding clunky and I fished it out of the filter.

Thank goodness it was clean, though. Because I don’t know what made her think it was a good idea to put the tiny padlock in her mouth. And then swallow.

My husband spent Friday night in the ER with her, while I sat home with the other kids. (That’s the inside view, right there. Aren’t her wee little guts cute?)

I expected to end up in the ER with a child who had ingested something at some point, but I honestly thought it would be my 2 1/2-year-old son, who puts everything in his mouth, not my preternaturally serious little girl. 

She’s fine, now — the lock was closed, so there was no hook to snag in her intestines, and the doctors told us to let nature take its course. Which it did, about 40 hours later.

Recently, I shared my list of Things I Never Thought I’d Say as a Mom, and mentioned that there was another list in my head, of Things I Never Thought I’d Do. The tiny-padlock-search-and-rescue mission ranks high on that list, as well as my ”Things That Really Squick Me Out” list (hint: it involved a special container from the hospital, a disposable wooden chopstick, a running commentary from my preschooler about her nether reigions, and lots of gagging on my part).  

(Other things I never thought I’d do: Catch vomit in my hands, because that’s preferable to having it land on the rug. Consider leftover chicken nuggets — leftover, half-eaten chicken nuggets — an adequate meal for myself. Think three consecutive hours equals a good night’s sleep.)

The lock is currently sitting in a small bowl filled with hand-sanitizing gel, though truthfully I don’t know if it’ll ever be sanitary enough for me to look at it without wincing. As a friend of my husband’s said, “It’s ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s,’ not ‘Tiffany’s for Breakfast’!”

 

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