More Adventures in the ER

Boys are weird.  This is a statement that I have held firm to since I was a little girl.  It was always my observation that boys were weird, and nothing in the past thirty years has swayed my opinion.  Especially after our most recent adventure this past weekend. 

I dozed off on the couch on this past rainy Sunday afternoon because the kids were playing Star Wars Legos on the Wii and it's totally boring to watch.  I don't know how long I was asleep, but I awoke to two very alarming things.  The first thing was the image of Michael Jackson dressed as a scarecrow.  Apparently, The Wiz was on Bounce TV and the kids took to it.  As if that isn't frightening enough to wake up to, moments later Jack began to scream louder than I have ever heard him scream before.  He kept pointing to his nose and saying, "It hurts!  It hurts!" 

Now, nothing had happened.  They were all sitting on the living room floor completely entranced by Richard Pryor's portrayal of the Great and Powerful Oz.  Frankly, it creeps me out, but whatever.  The kids were not even moving, so he didn't get hit or bump into anything.  It took several minutes for us to figure out what had happened.  Jack shoved the Incredible Hulk's head up his nose.  Yes, you read that correctly.  He shoved the Incredible Hulk's head... up his nose.  It was stuck, and it was bleeding.

I tried to call the pediatrician to find out what to do in a situation like this.  There's just no training for "when you're kid shoves a superhero up their nose."  And even if there was, I would probably skip it because what is the likelihood that my kid will shove a superhero up his nose?  There was no answer at the doctor's office, so we decided to just take him to the ER.  While helping him put his shoes on, Jack sneezed a really wet and disgusting sneeze all over the top of Mike's head and he stopped crying for the first time in ten minutes.  We wondered if the sneeze ejected the Hulk, but a quick look with a flashlight confirmed that the superhero was still there.  I guess it just moved into a more comfortable position.  At this point, Jack's nose was beginning to swell.  I was panicking inside, but trying to stay calm.

We loaded the kids into the car and I called my parents house to let them know we were on our way to drop the girls off.  No answer.  I called my mom's cell phone.  No answer.  By the time my dad answered his cell and told me they were at the store I was really panicking and yelled something like, "We have an emergency, so you need to get home fast to watch the kids!"  Then I hung up.  In retrospect this was incredibly rude, and for that I apologise.  Sorry, Mom.  Sorry, Dad.  I wasn't really thinking about the parts I was leaving out of the phone conversation.

Jack had fun playing with the bead table and watching the fish.

Once that got worked out, and the girls were explaining to my parent's neighbors that their little brother shoved the Hulk's head up his nose, we were on our way to the hospital.  The entire time I tried to distract Jack from sticking his finger up his nose and pushing the toy further up.  This turned out not to be an easy task.  The hospital has a separate Pediatric Emergency Room that is pretty cool.  (Thanks, Tom Galisano!)  It has these big glass tubes with lights and bubbles and little plastic fishes swimming around in them and several tables with those wire and bead toys.  It was a very happy little place, and we were the only people in the waiting room.

Okay, so I took my hands off my face
for a second to take this picture.

Before long, we were called into the little exam room.  They tried several things to try and get the Hulk out of Jack's nose, but finally got him out using those little forceps that look like scissors.  He did not enjoy this experience at all.  Neither did I.  He screamed in a way that I hope I never hear again.  Mike had to help hold him down because I was very busy covering my face and trying not to cry on behalf of my poor little baby boy.

After a minute or two of trying, they were able to pull the Hulk out of Jack's nose.

He was not at all pleased with this experience. 
My poor baby had blood running down his face.

Although, he was fairly interested in what had come out of his nose.
It's the top of Hulk's head.  Really, just his hair.
But it's still far too large to be shoved up one's nose.

After the ordeal, the hospital staff gave him a popsicle and everything was as
right as rain.  When we asked him why he shoved the head up his nose he said,
"I was trying to get out some boogers."
Well, sure... that makes sense...

Here's what's left of the hulk.  His rubber face is missing most of the back half.
"Hulk smash Jack's buggers!"

My girls never did anything like this.  I never had to bring my girls to the Emergency Room and they never tried to shove anything up their noses.  This is the closest any of my girls have ever gotten to shoving something up their nose.  It was unsuccessful.

We call this photo "Moink" because that's what Mya said when
she tried to shove the bunny up her nose.
Mya - 18 months old

So, boys are weird.  My opinion stands firm.

The Linen Closet

My linen closet is a disaster.  Towels are shoved in, bottles of shampoo are tipped over, there are a large number of outdated nail polish jars teetering on the edge of the shelf.  And don't get me started on the various medicine bottles. For an area that was originally intended for sheets and towels, there's an awful lot of other junk in there.  It's a mess.  If you don't believe me, take a look at this.

Messy Linen Closet

It's been like this for quite some time and I've just worked around the mess by quickly shoving towels in and slamming the door shut before something else got pushed out.  But for some reason, last night was as long as I could take it.  Maybe it's due to a growing sense of a complete lack of control over anything in my life, but while my three kids were in the bathroom brushing their teeth before bed I decided that it was the perfect time to empty out the first two shelves of the linen closet and reorganize.  I mean, how bad could the top two shelves really be?  It's not like I really use them.  What could possibly be up there?

The medicines are particularly jumbled... and expired.

 

Top Two Shelves, Before Picture

What could possibly be up there?  Aside from the basics, (band-aids, cotton balls, Q-Tips, and expired medicines) here's what:

• At least a dozen of those plastic bags with zippers that sheets, blankets and comforters come in.  I had a vision of making all sorts of crocheted blankets and keeping them fresh and clean in these bags.  Surprise, surprise, this never happened.  Just another one of my bag issues.
• A Homedics back massager, which looks like some sort of heavy duty torture device.  Mike remembers using it at our apartment before we had kids.  I don't know.  It's really heavy.  Maybe I'll keep it handy to fight off intruders.
• Some sort of gigantic Conair machine that is supposed to turn your bathtub into a relaxing Jacuzzi.  Now this I remember using... once.  It didn't attach to the tub correctly and ended up falling in and nearly breaking my leg. 
• Breast pads from when I had my daughter in 2003.  Why I felt I might need to save these, I have no idea.
• Tiny little soaps and shampoos from Disney World.  The last time we went to Disney was our honeymoon ten years ago.  I don't think I can bring myself to toss out anything with those ears on it.
• A full bottle of Nair for Men.  ??? 
• Three different brands of nearly full tooth whitening systems.  Apparently I have often wished for whiter looking teeth, but can't be bothered with those messy strips.  That must be when I moved on to whitening toothpaste.
• A lint roller.  Just the roller.  No tape.  So really, some sort of weird, inefficient whisk type device.
• Four packages of opened razors.
• Three different sized baby aspirators.  Or, as I refer to them, Boogie Snatchers.
• A gallon jug of shampoo.  No conditioner in sight. 
• Three huge boxes of tampons.  That should last me a while.
• Some sort of plastic ring with suction cups.  We couldn't quite remember what it's function was but it had something to do with the bathtub.
• 29 bottles of nail polish.

Discovering these items right before bedtime was a bad idea.  As soon as the tooth brushing was over I was bombarded with questions of "What's this? What's this thing do? Why do you have this?"  My response was the same for all three questions; "I have no idea." 

The worst thing I found was a box of Crayola Soap Scribblers.  It's soap shaped like crayons.  The idea is that the kids can color themselves and the tub walls and it will all wash off, lickety split, because after all, it's just soap... right?  WRONG!  It comes off of the kids okay, but there is about 45 minutes of scrubbing before you can get it off the walls, the tub, the shower curtain, and the floor.  I remember having something similar when I was a kid.  I would always beg my mom to let me use it and she never would.  I couldn't understand it at the time, but I get it now.  Sorry Mom.

Once I got everything off of the top two shelves I had to decide what to do with it all.  I threw enough junk out to fill a full sized Hefty bag, including a whole bunch of expired medicine.  I know, there's something else that I'm supposed to do with expired medicine, but quite frankly I don't have time to try and figure out where to drop them off.  So all the junkies can come raid my trash can.  At least I didn't flush them (which is a whole other blog.  I don't know what's more disturbing, that flushed medicine ends up in our drinking water or that what we FLUSH ends up with the drinking water!  Just another reason for me to drink bottled water, I guess.)

Anyhow, I managed to get the top two shelves put back together in a more organized way.

Top Two Shelves, After

I was hoping it would look a lot different.  Only four more shelves to go.