Daniel Benjamin turned six this past week. Matt and I both rejoiced because every new year with Daniel marks another 365 days of survival.
He doesn't make it easy for us...
Or for himself.
Danny's voice is, by far, the loudest in our home. I'm not sure why this is. Usually, and especially in a large family, the loud ones are loud because they do not get enough attention. Since this is far from reality, as Danny demands attention with every breath and movement, our little guy has me stumped.
The good news is that his newest rival is completely undeterred by the noise, and revels in a good challenge. Their relationship is one for the books. I've never seen a more fascinating display of sibling rivalry/love.
Danny has spent most of this year getting into scrapes. This first picture is supposed to be showing his first lost tooth, but also focuses on his ear that SOMEHOW contracted dermatitis. He spent a few days on antibiotics and steroids, as his entire face and one hand blew up...we think it was a reaction to the poison ivy he played in when I told him not to go in the forest. Or it could have been from the drainage mud that he fell in after I told him not to go near the water.
Either way.
He lost his first two teeth within days of each other.
This next story about that silver ball bearing you see in my hand really isn't quite funny yet. My friend Mary tells me that someday I will laugh about it.
Today is not someday, but here goes.
We had put the younger boys to bed. Our usual routine takes about 1-2 hours. It consists of brushing teeth to the song of their choice, bathing, getting them into pajamas, one dance to the song of their choice, prayers as a family, drinks, snacks, brushing teeth again, another song, reading maybe 1-7 books, rubbing their backs, holding their hands, telling them to stop talking for ~15 minutes, and then running out of the room and saying that it was NEVER THIS HARD FOR OUR PARENTS.
This particular night, I was EXHAUSTED. Danny had managed to fry me by 10am with 4 timeouts and 7 meltdowns, so I was excited to have some recharge time. We flew through our routine and ran down the stairs. Matt served a couple bowls of ice cream and we tiptoed into the basement to play a video game with the older kids.
About 10 minutes later, Esther came down crying. She said that Danny was in the library crying and that he had been choking on something.
I don't know that I have ever run that quickly. Up the stairs, two at a time, my heart racing. Danny was standing in front of Matt's computer desk, with his hands on his hips, tears streaming down his face.
He was angry...and scared.
So was I.
He told me that he saw a silver ball in the library and it was shiny and he wondered what it would feel like in his mouth. Whiiiiiiiile it was in his mouth, he ended up choking on it and swallowing it on accident.
"WHAT SILVER BALL?!?!?" I screamed.
He told me it was just laying on the floor.
We scoured the floor for more balls. I sent the kids downstairs to search through Lego bins to identify what size sphere it was that was traveling uninvited through Daniel's esophagus.
OH MY HECK! WOULD IT MAKE IT THROUGH HIS SYSTEM?!?!
I started speaking in a pitch and tone that they reserve for new Army recruits.
"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!? WHERE EXACTLY DID YOU FIND IT?!?! WHY WERE YOU OUT OF YOUR BED? DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TAKES ME TO GET YOU IN BED?!?! DOES YOUR STOMACH HURT? DID YOU DRINK ANYTHING? WAS IT MAGNETIC? HOW HEAVY IS IT?"
After we determined that it was not a Lego and not one of Sarah's earrings, I gave Daniel a drink of prune juice and one of Charlie's laxatives.
THEN I PUT THE CHILD BACK IN BED.
For the next two days, Daniel could not go to the bathroom alone. I searched through his bowel movements and gave him daily prune juice and worried about what exactly I would be telling the doctor when I call him to take an x-ray.
It didn't help that every hour, on the hour, Daniel would come to me and give me an update about where this silver ball was in his body.
"Now, it's about here," he would say, pointing to his chest.
A couple hours later, it was in his knee.
Then, in his brain.
Every time he used the bathroom, he would make me wild promises.
"THIS IS GONNA BE THE TIME, MOM! I JUST KNOW IT!"
When it finally passed, I heard a metal clank in the bowl of the toilet.
We laughed.
We cried.
I lost ten years of my life.
We are all fine here.
It ended up being a ball bearing from the library closet door that had fallen out unnoticed.
A BALL BEARING.
“I don’t know why, but I really like sugary things.”
Daniel is our resident Calvin.
He dreams of growing up and being like Uncle Rob.
He would like to get married and have between 1 and 17 kids and professionally ride a bike.
Matt and I just celebrate that he made it through another year.
