This, too, shall pass

Fr. Joel ran out the door this evening with 5 of the kids in tow (well, 8 if you count the neighbor kids who went along) for their Wednesday evening church class. I decided it would be great fun to have a wagon walk with the remaining crew and they were more than happy to join in. John Michael had his neighborhood bike-riding debut and was so thrilled in his stunt man helmet, riding on the street where the big kids ride. David thought he might venture the trip on his tricycle but after he tip-toed 20 feet down the driveway, he ditched his helmet and trike for a seat in the wagon. Adora pushed the twins in the double stroller and Betsy zipped along on her bike. We got about 4 houses up the street when Pooka suddenly realized we had left without HER (surely this was a mistake on our part) and she came busting out of the door and running down the street after us. I managed to rally the dog and left Adora standing in the middle of the street, collar in hand, wrangling the rest of the crew while I ran home for a leash - dog 1, humans 0.

The leash hangs on the side of Sydney's table who squawked at me when I came near and it took me a moment to convince him that birds just don't go on wagon walks....

Once we finally got it all together we must have been quite a sight as all the neighbors had the usual comments to make at our passing "You have your hands full", "that's quite a crew tonight", "Can't the dog pull the wagon?" (well, no, because that would actually be helpful...). I was sorry I hadn't brought the camera - if for no other reason than to permanently record the determined joy on JM's face as he maneuvered his bike from one curb crash to the next. He's such a boy...Then, as if we weren't having enough fun, I got a call on my cell phone from my dear husband. The conversation went something like this...

Hi

Hi

Um, apparently Ruth swallowed a coin.

Where did she get a coin?

I don't know but she swallowed one. She's standing here not telling me much about it.

What do you want me to do?

Um, I don't know but I'm in the middle of teaching 10 boys how to make scrambled eggs.

Ok, tell her to sit down somewhere and I'll come get her...


Fortunately I had my super secret crisis weapon right there with me - her name is Adora. We managed to get JM, the dog, the stroller and the wagon back into the driveway where I ditched all of my responsibilities into the hands of my most capable Crisis Manager to go rescue my daughter from the coin lodged somewhere between her tonsils and her bowels. I put in calls to both her pediatrician and her hematologist (hey, how am I supposed to know if coin swallowing can trigger a crisis?!). The hemo called back first so we went to his ER, at the suggestion of our parish nurse (who at one point worked in our local ER and we had long ago discussed that this was no place for a child with sickle cell to receive any kind of emergency care). An hour of driving and two and a half hours in the ER later, we were told that the coin had made it past the esophagus and into the stomach. This was a good thing as now she won't require surgery and this, too, shall pass....

(Now please pray with me that she doesn't remember to flush the toilet for the first time in her life over the next five days!)