Emergency

I always assumed it would be my son's antics that would drag me to the E.R. at the local hospital first.

Alas, this afternoon as I was relaxing and putting my innocent three-year-old boy down for his nap, I heard a coughing and a spluttering from my five-year-old girl downstairs. I came down to see if she was OK and was told: "I just swallowed a jewel."

She had indeed swallowed a plastic jewel about the size of a nickel and, according to her, it was stuck in her throat.

Ten minutes (and a frantic phone call to the wife) later, we are at the hospital. I am filled with visions of my daughter being given some vomit-inducing drug to make her throw up or, even worse, surgery.

In fact, it would seem, the jewel had shifted and was on its way "down" to its eventual destination. Since returning home there have been several explanations of why the jewel will come out as poo-poo and not pee-pee.

All in all, it's been a really shit day, despite the humor I'm trying to inject to make myself laugh.

And tomorrow, my wife leaves for a weekend away with the girls. Needless to say, in the effort to make the weekend without back-up go smoothly, pizza and take-out food will be on the menu. Plastic jewelry will not.