the star.

It has been a week. A fricken week.
It was all going fine until Wednesday night.
Michele and Randy were down and read the kids good night books. E just wouldn't settle down. Suddenly we hear a scream of pain come from her room. Matt and I had both been in there multiple times throughout the night so neither of us were happy about going back in their room.

EER: I puked in my bed!!
ALR: have a drink of water, let's get that taste out of your mouth.
EER takes sip, pukes it all back in ALR's hands.
MJR begins checking the bed, ALR takes EER into the bathroom to sit in front of the toilet.
EER: Mom, I swallowed a star.
ALR: What? (praying it's one of Ainsley's puffs and that maybe she's feeling guilty because she's not supposed to eat baby food) 
ALR: Are there more stars?
EER: Yes
MJR: There's no puke.
ALR: Can you show Dad where the other stars are?
EER and him go back into her room
MJR comes back out with EER and a bracelet: You ate one of these? 
EER nods

It was off my scentsy bracelet - a charm bracelet with various size and shape stars, a bracelet that the kids have been playing with for months. I wasn't sure what size the star was, maybe if it was a little one it would just slip right thru. However, after visiting with my sponsor/director who gave me the bracelet, we discovered that Eleanor had swallowed the biggest star on the bracelet and with the clasp was bigger than a penny. So we headed off to the hospital.

Three hours later with 2 x-rays and one quick visit from the on-call ENT, we were being prepped for surgery to remove the star. We stayed one night in the hospital and acquired one more Alex to cuddle with. I could tell the next day she was feeling much better - wolfed down the room service breakfast, found the play room, watched a movie, cuddled with me, colored, and reported back to Dad all the activities for the day. She handled it all in stride, hard to believe that this was the same little girl that was in so much pain the night before that she was scared to tell us. I'm so glad it all came out okay, literally. We even kept the star.

As the weekend kicked off, we snuck in one more trip to the pumpkin patch and then spent Saturday playing and working on projects as Matt went out to help at the farm.