Human Piggy Bank?

This past Monday on June 21st Christian and I made one of many trips to the ER! Lately, he has had this huge fetish for hoarding money around the house! If you leave it on the counter, if it is in your pocket or even in your purse it is not off limits! Christian loves to put money in his piggy bank and will collect it any way he can find it!

The past week or so I have gotten on to him because he has been putting the money in his mouth! First of all this is a huge chocking hazard! Second, it is terrible behavior when you have a younger sister who copies everything you do! Third, it is just plain disgusting!

The other day we had been at my parents house practicing our swimming skills. They happen to have a small slot machine that sits on the bar downstairs. Christian of course loves this because there is real money coming out of it and you never have to put money in (or he does not anyway)! :) I think he scored about a dollar and a half that day? I owe you mom and dad! :)

So long story short he had the money in his pocket all afternoon and that is where it stayed...until bath time!
He had put the money on the side of the tub for safe keeping during his bath? I was bathing them in our tub downstairs, which I usually stand in when I bathe them because it is just too wide to bend over. I was washing Henley when all of the sudden Chrisitan started choking! Immediately I freaked out and started asking him if he swallowed the quarter?  I kept screaming we are going to have to go to the hospital, which followed with him flipping out! Christian detests doctors of any kind anywhere! He continued to tell me he did not swallow the quarter...as he kept rubbing his throat! I finally reasoned with him and got him to calm down. I told him that I was not upset with him, but I needed to know if he had swallowed the quarter. If he had then we needed to look for it in his poop. Once we found it than we had to put the money in his piggy bank! This seemed to make sense to him so he told me that he indeed swallowed the quarter? Well, I could not trust that he was telling the truth and this could be potentially very dangerous! I called the doctor and they told me that I had to take him to the ER for x-rays! They needed to see if he had swallowed the quarter and if he had where it was located in his body! So at 8:00pm we headed to the Children’s Hospital downtown! If you know anything about the Children’s Hospital ER downtown you would feel sorry for me! The hospital itself is great, but the ER is DISGUSTING! This is going to sound terrible, but it is truthful! There is nothing but a bunch of illegals and misfits on welfare in that ER! There is another ER closer to our home, but they do not see children with potential foreign objects lodged in their bodies! Ugh!!!

We got to the ER and it was jam packed! I thought for sure we would be there until midnight! However, they must put children with potentially lodged objects in their throats of utmost importance! We were back within 30 minutes! We saw the doctor and told the story about five hundred times to them. Christian would just laugh and tell them he swallowed money and he had it in his belly! He also told us often that his throat was hurting! I just knew that he had swallowed the quarter! The doctor tole me that if he had swallowed the quarter that she hoped it was in his belly. If the quarter was lodged anywhere else than he was being admitted and having surgery in the morning to dislodge it! Great! Brian was out of town and so were my parents! This would be nothing but, the perfect timing to have surgery! He went back for x-rays and had a blast! He got stickers and played games with the x-ray tech! He came out of the room smiling ear to ear! I think he was actually having fun! Honestly, he has been starving for attention lately over his sister and probably enjoyed this alone time with mom! The x-rays came back very quickly and Thank God there was NO quarter in his body anywhere! I was so relieved there would be no surgery on our little boy this time at the ER. Better safe than sorry and I could not have imagined if   something could of happened and I ignored it!

I am sure some of you are wondering if he learned his lesson? Well, it has been almost a week since this happened and I have not seen him pick up one piece of money! I hope that it scared him just a little that he has figured it was not worth it! Well..... I might of told him a frightening story or two to make sure he understood the consequences of his actions were he to have actually swallowed some money!