There's Just No Good Title for This One...

It's been quite awhile since I last blogged. Aside for the fact that work has been insanely busy, home has been crazy as well. The most recent insane incident in the Carter household (for the three people in the world that have not yet heard this story) is that last Shabbos Dani swallowed my engagement ring and my wedding band. While this story has been the "butt" of many jokes around town, the actual swallowing was incredibly scary. He got ahold of my rings Shabbos morning and put them in his mouth as a joke. He's not a baby that puts things in his mouth, but an almost 2-year old that knows he's not allowed to do that and was doing it for the "haha, I have your rings in my mouth" effect. I got annoyed, and put him in his crib and told him that he could come out when he gave me my rings back. This proved to be a bad decision, when he got upset, started crying, and then choked on the rings. (In general I am a calm, level-headed person. In this particular emergency situation I did not react well screaming for Joel and crying almost hysterically.) After choking for 30 or so seconds, the rings were gone and he was fine.

We are fortunate to now live in an area that has a lot of doctors and we are about 2 minutes from shul. We ran to shul and were advised by several doctors that while he would most likely be fine, there was a chance that if the rings didn't pass down to the stomach and were caught somewhere above the stomach that it was a very dangerous situation and they would need to be removed surgically. We then drove to the hospital where Dani had a great time. They took x-rays where we saw the rings and were happy to find out that they were safely in the stomach, and would pass naturally in a couple of days.

The "real fun" part came once we got home and had to be very vigilant about searching for the rings with every diaper change. Lo and Behold, this morning, not 2, but 3 rings came out. I wear a third ring that I didn't realize he had swallowed. I thought it had just gotten lost under the bed and hadn't bothered to look for it. It didn't show up in the x-ray. All's well that ends well. I have my rings back, though I'm not wearing them yet. If anyone has any really good jewelry cleaning ideas, I would appreciate them. Hope everyone in blogland is having a calm chag kasher v'samayach.

$33.18

This is definitely the least amount of money that I've ever spent at Seven Mile Market.

My baby goes to school

What a week it has been. We were given one day's notice that our WONDERFUL babysitter was leaving the country. Permanently. So, that meant that we had exactly one day to find new babysitting arrangements for Dani. To say that process was stressful is an understatement. We decided to send him to a preschool in our area that starts kids at 18 months. This, of course, occurring less than 2 weeks after our pediatrician and I were discussing how we had gone 3 whole months, from well visit to well visit, without him getting sick. When he was a baby in daycare he got sick all the time from RSV and infant asthma. After we sent him to the new babysitter, not one illness. How's that for an iyin hara. I felt slightly embarrassed sending the paperwork for school to his office for him to fill out. (BTW, Dani already has a stuffy nose. Time to allot more money into my medical flex account for the year.) I, being the mother, have been second guessing my decision over the past few days. Part of me wonders if we should have put him in a daycare with slightly less structure so he could nap when he wanted in a crib, as opposed to a mat on the floor. I don't know. Then, tonight we heard that our cleaning lady might be deserting us. It's really been one of those weeks.

Today I asked Dani if he went to school today. He said, "kool?" I said, "Did you like school?" and he said, "NO!" I then asked him a variety of other questions including do you want a cookie and recieved an emphatic no to each of them, so I'm not weighing too heavily on his opinion at this point.

But, a highlight of the day was the bag of art projects that came home with Dani. These are the first projects that he's ever made, so I'm feeling really sentimental. They apparently are working on the letter D, which obviously they did to welcome Dani to the school. I have no idea how much of these he actually "made", but still. Here are the pictures of my future Picasso. Here's to a less eventful Shabbos and weekend!

My Two New Favorite People

I have two new favorite people. Their names are Ben and Jerry. Today was an incredibly stressful, overall bad day. Aside from the main stress of the day, I heard some more things later in the day that genuinely distressed me. At about 7:30 pm when my blood pressure still hadn't returned to normal I knew something had to be done. I headed off to Shopper's to find solace in the ice cream aisle. Ben and Jerry rose to the occasion. Their Marsha Marsha Marshmallow ice cream is really, really good. Now, where's my Smirnoff Twist?

So Much for Good Sportsmanship

Now, I'm not a country music fan and I didn't watch the CMA's last night. I certainly don't think that Carrie Underwood is more talented than Faith Hill or Martina McBride (even though, I think I might have even voted for her once last season on American Idol). I DO think Faith Hill's reaction to losing Female Vocalist of the Year to Carrie Underwood is hysterical. Seriously, Faith, the girl is in Sketchers ads and doing Coca Cola commericals, I don't think you have that much to worry about.

Please Pass the Valium..

I have been off the plane for over 3 hours and in the house for almost 2 hours and I still haven't mentally recovered from the flight from Atlanta to Baltimore this morning. The whole experience, there and back, was just plain horrible. I also should apologize (again) to the man sitting in front of us that was the kind recipient of Dani's bottle being chucked at his head. And please, if you have a toddler who sits nicely on planes, smiles at everyone, sleeps and never cries, I. Don't. Want. To. Hear. About. It.

Oh, The Irony

I am in the process of getting life insurance. Part of that process involves a nurse or medical assistant coming to your house to check your height, weight, and to also take some blood to run some tests. I had my home-visit a couple of nights ago. The first part of the exam was fine, but then when it came time for the blood to be drawn I cautioned the nurse, as I often do with anyone drawing my blood, that I have small veins and it can be difficult to draw my blood. She tried with one needle, and when that was not successful I remembered that the smaller, butterfly needles usually work for me. So, I told her that. She tried again. And again, and again. Not to mention that she had tied one of those big latex rubber bands around my arms so tightly that I thought it was going to burst. Finally, she just gave up. She kept commenting, "This has never happened before. I've never seen anyone with such little veins." Putting aside how annoying the whole thing was, and the fact that they have to get someone else to come out and get my blood, it struck me as extremely ironic that of all things in my body that were created "extremely small" it had to be my veins!?! I will gladly trade my small veins for big, fat ones in exchange for making something else tiny.