Vida. Risa. Amor.

I love the moments after a chaotic experience when you can finally sit around and laugh with everyone involved and reanalyze the craziness that had happened. The other day I was out with 3 good friends who refer ourselves as "the preschool mom's", (since we all met a few years ago during the time our now 1st graders were in preschool together...and we joke that our kids will be teenagers together someday, and we'll still call each other the preschool mom's). So I was out with these 3 fun people to see New Moon since it was 2 of them which recommended that I read the Twilight books in the first place, (best book suggestion ever!!) After about 20 minutes into the movie I got a panicky phone call from Josie. I was only on the phone for a few seconds and I thought she was telling me that Rylan was choking and couldn't breathe...so she quickly hung up as she told me she was calling 911. As I'm left stunned in the hallway of the theater with my heart pounding out of my chest thinking Rylan couldn't breathe and not being able to breathe much myself, I knew I had to get home. I needed to move, run, scream...but my brain came back on, and I asked to borrow my friends keys and tried to drive as calmly as a Mom of a choking 3 year old could possibly go. Of course it was the day that every snow bird in Arizona was driving in front of me with shoppers from the mall chatting in the middle of the parking lot. After my 90th call back to home on my cell phone, a fireman answered and told me not to worry or speed, and that it was just that my son had a bead up his nose.

He was breathing. He. had. a. bead. stuck. up. his. nose.
Thank you firemen. Thank you God.

So I didn't have to speed like a maniac for the last 2 miles home and when I finally got home my son was sitting on the couch with a plastic fireman hat on, clutching a home-made teddy bear they gave him, surrounded by probably 10 very tall & good-looking firemen staring at him along with my daughter and her friends, my Mom and some neighbors. With all 55 of us waiting in my living room for that bead to get out, and a few suggestions of using tweezers, I tried to bribe him with his sippy cup of milk and blue ni-ni and after a couple of brave blows it finally came out. My teenage daughter and her 2 friends were so relieved, and the fireman were able to go back to work. Before they left, they let the kids check out their truck and asked what Rylan was going to name his bear, so I suggested we name him Bead, which gave us all a good laugh.

I guess it's pretty likely that most kids eventually stick something up their nose, and it's better that it wasn't a cinnamon red tic tac like I had done at that age, (which burned!) Looking back I'm thankful for a lot: That Josie called for help and had friends over for support, that I have Mom friends that have been there and can help me laugh about our kids, that there are goodlooking firemen...I mean that fireman come to our rescue quickly, that I had makeup on and cleaned my house that morning, that I had already seen New Moon twice already, that I got a chance to drive a super awesome car and didn't crash under the circumstances, and that Rylan is fine and wasn't in a worse situation that I don't even want to imagine.

Oh yeah, and the beads are well out of reach and hidden now.