The Bead.

Ben made a beautiful bead bracelet today at preschool. He chose each bead very carefully and arranged all 5 in a precise order only he was quite sure of. He wore it proudly on his wrist all morning. And into bed.

This is where it gets ugly.

I hear him suddenly cry loudly from his bedroom, where usually he is very happy to be. Because this is so unusual I ran into his room. He was so upset it took him at least five minutes to be able to speak.

"Ben, can you please tell Mommy what is wrong?"

"Nooooot yeeeeet".

we wait. He cries on my shoulder. The snot spot growing by the minute.

"Please Ben, if you can't tell me I will have to put you back in your bed for a minute while I get a kleenex to blow your nose".

"Nooooo Kleenex! The bead might get more stuck!"

WHAT????

There is was. Shoved up as far as it could go, a pretty green bead.

I tried my finger. I tried a cue tip. I tried tweezers. Then I called the Doctor.

I could hear the smile in the receptionists voice.
"A bead you say?"

"Yes a bead. I can't get it".

"How old did you say he was?"

"two".

"mmmmm". (smile)

I know this is a right of passage. I just didn't want to spend my afternoon in the doctors office with bead boy. The Doctor could see him in a hour. Okay I had an hour to work with. I had to call Jon home from work to hold him down (he's little but boy is he strong. I took one kick to the head to know I needed back up).

Smart man that he is, Jon immediately suggested a crochet hook. OF COURSE! It was out in seconds.

"Ben are you ever going to put beads in your nose again"?

"Yes".

mmmm.

- On another note...about ten minutes after our afternoon excitement my Mother calls. Better known as Grammie. As a prelude I need to explain that there was very few limits placed on me as a child. I came and went virtually as I pleased, we triple belted in the backseat regularly, I roamed the neighbourhood, wore skinned knees as fashion statements and had a sibling with a photo album devoted to his broken bones and injuries requiring more than 3 stitches. My mother was not neglectful in the least but she was prone to the attitude of "kids will be kids" and "they have to learn somehow".

Then she had grandchildren.

the sun rises and sets on these children and she can't talk to me on the phone if one of them is so much as whimpering in the background.
"Ohhhhh Jenn, call me back when he isn't crying, I can't hear him cry".
"He's not crying mom, it was a hiccup".
"Ohhhhh it sounded like crying. Call me later".

To exemplify the degree of helicopter grand mothering she exhibits Ben was playing with a bungee cord recently when she was here. As he was swinging it around his head Grammie looked at me in horror.

"Jenn! He can't play with that! Aren't you going to take it from him?!"
"Um no... He's fine mom. What could possibly happen?" I examined the short cord with two blunt peices of soft rounded rubber ends. I still couldn't see the danger in his impromptu lasso.

"Jenn! He could catch his eye with that hook and rip his eyeball out!"

Oh well, other than that of course. (Really, there was NO WAY this was going to happen.)

So I made the mistake of telling her the bead story.

"OH MY GOSH JENN!!!!OH MY OH MY OH MY! IS HE OKAY????"

"Yes mom, he is fine it was just a bead". I made the huge judgement error that she would have found humor in this story.

"Jenn, it is not JUST a bead. Don't you know he could have sniffed it up to his BRAIN!"

"No mom, he could not have. It was too big to go up to his brain".

"Well gee jenn, I don't know. It sounds like it could have been bad. Really bad. Ohhhh my. I have to go now."

Then she hung up.

And here I thought it was just a bead!