Patrick's Pebble

Yesterday was a banner day at the Hatton household. It started with Aunt Mary come down on Friday on the way to St. Louis to help Annie move. It took about 10 seconds for Becca and Patrick to get a book in her hand.

George enjoyed the story from his excer-saucer.

Mary and Mike left bright and early Saturday morning and the kids and I stayed in Washington. George practiced sitting up.

After dinner we went outside and had fun in the pool with their clothes on.


Patrick told me his clothes shrunk and Becca just loved the whole thing.

George just hung out in the grass.

Now for the banner part of the day. The older kids had just gone to bed and I was nursing George when I heard Becca crying upstairs. I went up to help and heard Patrick calling for me with a hint of panic in his voice. He told me he needed a Kleenex, which I got for him and went back downstairs. 5 minutes later I hear crying again and march upstairs ready to combat Becca's nightly fight to go to sleep. But again it was Patrick. After several minutes of confusion he finally told me he had a pebble up his nose. It'd been a long day and after several attempts to blow the pebble out, I started to freak out...a lot. I called Mike on the road asking him what to do. Then I called my mother, and finally my doctor father-in-law. He suggested plugging the open nostril and blowing into Patrick's mouth. I did these at least ten times and nothing came out. By this time I'm completely crazy and don't know what to do. Then my sainted mother-in-law (thanks Jan) called and got me calmed down enough for me to wait an hour for Mike to come home. In that time, I tried at least 10 more times to get that pebble out to no avail. Within minutes of Mike walking in the door, we were off to the ER as Becca stayed home with Mary (thanks Mary). Once we saw the doctor and he found the right tool, the pebble was out in no time at all. After waiting to fill out some paper work, we headed home and put the boys to bed around 11:30. Here is a picture of the stupid pebble.

All in all, Patrick seemed to have a good time. He talked the whole way to the hospital, saw a rescue helicopter and a red ambulance. Some how we managed to miss anything scary while waiting in the ER. I would say our first trip the ER (and probably not our last) was pretty mild and therefore a good one. Thanks again for all of you who tried to calm me down which, let's face it, is a no small task.

To answer the question of how the pebble got there in the first place, Patrick says he was trying to get a closer smell of the pebble, when it was apparently inhaled into his nasal passage.