Hear No Evil, See No Evil...

Murphy has a nasty habit of sneaking up on me and biting me on the ass, which is exactly where he should shove that law.  Up his, not mine, just to be clear.

Thursday night, on the heels of Punky's well visit, we celebrated the fact that it was so wonderful to go months without a single trip to the doctor.  We toasted to the hope of another record-breaking stretch, and joked about the likelihood that she picked something up while there and that she'll probably have another ear infection next week.

We made a big bowl of popcorn, popped in a classic cartoon DVD, and snuggled up on the couch for some quality family time.  Just the three of us.  All happy, healthy, and in the same place at the same time.  Hey, it doesn't happen often.  Not nearly as often as it should.

An hour later the popcorn was about gone, her dad was about two seconds from snoring on the couch, and Punky's attention span had about reached its limit.  It was bedtime anyway.  And then, it happened.

"Mommy, I can't get this out of here."

The instant I looked her way, I knew exactly what she did and that bedtime would be delayed for hours. 

"Please tell me you didn't put a popcorn kernel in your ear!"

She did.

I will spare you the yelling that immediately followed this discovery.  Poor kid.  Mommy and Daddy were not a bit amused to say the least.  We made it through the infant/toddler stage when kids don't know any better; I truly thought we were in the clear.

For the next half hour, we tried everything we could think of to safely remove the kernel and spare us a trip to the ER that late at night.  We tried tweezers.  We tried toothpaste on a Q-tip thinking it would stick to it long enough to pull it out.  We even put the vacuum hose up to her ear and tried to suck it out.  But our efforts were all in vain.  It was stuck, pointy end down, and we were afraid we would bust her eardrum if we kept poking around in there.  So, a forty minute ride to the hospital it was. 

The nurses at the front desk had a good chuckle when we arrived.  While doing the routine paperwork, they entertained us with stories of other things they had seen lodged in kids' holes over the years.  And since we were hardly an emergency case, many more nurses, doctors, and even the janitor had ample time to hear the news and pop into our room to add their own something-stuck-in-an-orifice stories while we waited almost two hours for someone to remove the kernel. 

It took two tries to flood her ear with a syringe of warm water and safely wash it out, and thankfully there was no damage to her eardrum.  It was almost one in the morning when we got home, and I was awake until almost three.  

I felt like a zombie at work yesterday.  I've been lucky in the sleep department lately, no insomnia bouts for a while, so I was out of practice functioning on only three hours of sleep.  But not to worry, Murphy stepped in again to wake me up after lunch.

I was in the file room, minding my own business, making photocopies, and chatting with a co-worker.  Hardly a dangerous scenario, no?  I grabbed my copies from the paper tray and somehow they managed to slip through my fingers.  One single sheet spiraled through the air and got me.  A paper cut.  In my eye.

Yes, I said IN MY EYE.  

My eye instantly swelled and turned the color of a cherry tomato.  I returned to my office and watched a small lake form on my desk as my eye put its tear duct in overdrive in an attempt to flush out the intruder.  And since it was an actual cut on my eyeball, and not a loose, foreign object, the tears flowed frantically for hours.  Of course I was required to report it as an accident, so I got to look like an idiot while person after person, my boss included, paraded through my office to look at my bulging ball of fire.  

They offered to send me to a doctor but I decided to wait it out.  The only incident I had for comparison was when Punky poked me with the sidewalk chalk and, truth be told, that one hurt much worse.  By the end of the day my eye returned to its normal color, aside from the bright red line of the cut itself.  It was uncomfortable to blink, but not excruciating pain or anything.  From what I read, the only danger is if bacteria gets in and the eye gets infected.  I guess I'll know if my eye turns green and puss starts oozing.

Before Punky's dad left for work on third shift last night, I warned him to watch his holes.  We're having some serious orifice issues in this house.  I told him if he managed to knock a tooth out, he would be the third monkey.  Our injury collection would be complete: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

I'm happy to report he survived the night without incident.