Oh where, oh where has my barrette gone . . .

So, yesterday (as I was writing my previous post) Julia's teacher calls me on my cell phone in the middle of the day.  Now this is usually never a good sign and yesterday proved to be no exception.  I figured she had a bad cough or fever since all 3 of the kids have been fighting off a cold for the past week.  But oh no!!!  It couldn't be that simple.  No . . . what my 5-year-old's teacher let me know was that during naptime Julia had swallowed her hair barrette.  And I knew exactly which one it was.  I remember really insignificant details such as this, I always called it useless knowledge.  On this particular day, though, it was anything but useless.

I immediately called our pediatrician.  She wanted to see her and have x-rays done since the barrette was metal and was pointy.  So, I get on the phone trying to find a someone to babysit my other 2 who were sleeping so innocently.  Thank heavens for my awesome friend Julie who was here within 5 minutes and stayed until my mother-in-law could come over.

After a couple of hours, an exam & x-rays we were headed home with our poop catchers, lots of gloves and tongue depressors (apparently they also work for digging in feces-eewww).  The barrette made it safely down her esophagus and was just sitting there at the top of her tummy.  I could see it plain as day on the x-rays.  Now we just have to wait and pray that it goes through the lower intestine as smoothly as it went through the esophagus.  Oh and did I mention that we have to go through her poop until we find it?  I told Julia that she was going to have to do this part.  She doesn't believe me!!!

Julia was a trooper through the whole thing.  Scott and I did have a serious talk with her about why we don't put things in our mouths that don't belong there.  Hopefully we will all learn a lesson from this incident!!