Rocks

Aaron has a thing for sticking things in his ears.  When he was really little (like 3 or 4--but my memory of those times is a little fuzzy--heck my memory of these current times is fuzzy, so don't quote me on exactly how old he was) we would hang out in the doctor's office (multiple times) while they dug Play Doh out of his ears.  He took a break from Play Doh for a few years, and decided it was time to start shoving things in there again.   In April of this year (I remember it was in April because it was my daughter's birthday that day--yay for holidays) I got a phone call from the school saying they thought Aaron had something in his ears--so off we went to the doctor's office.  We were about to go to Children's Hospital to have them put him under to dig it out (they were originally going to send him to ENT, but they couldn't get him in for four days.  The doctor told me to make sure he didn't play with it while we waited.  I almost laughed out loud.  I gave his this look, and kindly let him know that was impossible--thus the decision to get it taken care of right away), but the awesome MA said she's the ear flushing master--so we gave it a shot.  They didn't want to traumatize him, but I was like, "Are you kidding me?  I want this kid so traumatized that he'll never put another object in his ears!!!" 

Well...two weeks later (I kid you not) I got a phone call from the school, "Hey Danica, Aaron is in the office and we think he's got something else in his ear."  Crap!!!!!  Off we go to the doctor.  Sure enough, this time he had a ball bearing crammed in his ear. 

A couple of days later (again, I kid you not)--I saw the school phone number on the caller ID.  The voice on the other line said, "Hi Danica, this is Laurie" (she's one of the secretaries) and I interrupted her "DON'T TELL ME AARON HAS SOMETHING IN HIS EAR".  I later found out the secretaries drew straws on who was going to have to be the one to call me!!!  :)  Off we went to the doctor AGAIN.  Luckily this time it was a false alarm.  However, after all of the times that I spent watching how to flush his ear, I got the privilege of  taking home my very own syringe-ear-flusher.  That way I could "try this at home" first.  I took Aaron back to school after that appointment only to find out that there was a substitute that day.  Apparently he was a new special ed teacher right out of college.  He was really nice, patient, and the kids loved him.  A young guy whose feet weren't wet--yet.  I decided to capitalize on this perfect opportunity.  The regular teacher was there, but it was her paperwork day, so she and I talked about the incident and about the substitute (whom I'd never met).   My prey walked into the classroom and the teacher introduced us.  I told him how relieved I was that Aaron didn't have something in his ear, but that he (the substitute) owed me $30 for a copay that wasn't needed.  He gave me this deer-in-the-headlights look as I told him this with a serious face.  I couldn't keep it long though and told him I was just kidding.  Poor guy.  I had way too much fun with that one.  Anyhow....

Fast forward to this morning.  He's been at school 10 MINUTES.  The phone call comes in, "Hi Danica, this is Laurie...Aaron has a huge rock stuck in his ear and we can't get it out".  Dang it!!!  I told her we would be there in a few minutes.  I'll be honest--I was still in bed--yup, mother of the year.  Since I was still in bed that meant: terrible breath from the pico de gallo & wine from the night before, no makeup, no shower, and some wicked striped fleece pajamas that I'm sure did wonders for my butt!  Not only that, but Husband's car was in the shop, so he had my car and was supposedly working out.  I was able to get a hold of him (he was in the driveway because he forgot his key to the gym because he had my keys--yeah right), so he went and picked Aaron up.  It ended up that while Husband went looking for a tooth pick (because he didn't think the water flush would work--and he tried the tweezers and they didn't work--for him), Daughter pulled his ear open and popped out the rock with the help from the tweezers.  She's a great big sister, and she's going to be a great mother (when she's 30).  No doctor's visit this time, and back to school he went. 

I took a picture of the latest rock, and put my hand in the picture for a frame of reference!

Excuses excuses

So it's been a while.  It's not because Aaron hasn't been getting into mischief--because he has--don't worry.  I've been a little preoccupied because we're in the process of moving.  Our current house closed, and we're in the process of waiting for our new house to be finished.  Needless to say, that puts a little extra on my plate.  So bear with me for the next couple of weeks until we get settled into our new house (hopefully sometime in the middle of November).  Moving is going to suck for Aaron (and I'd venture to say it's going to suck more for me because of how much it's going to suck for Aaron), so I'll have all kinds of stories I'm sure.

Tonight Aaron and I went "shopping".  Oldest Son was at Civil Air Patrol, Daughter was at youth group, and Husband is gone for a couple of days (please don't come and assault me) so it was just me and The Boy.  I needed to replace a window screen that Aaron had painted earlier this summer, so we went to Lowes in search of a screen kit.  I've done this once before because "someone" ruined another screen--so I'm a pro.  We walked through Lowes without incident, so he could handle another store--right?  Sure.  So we went to Michaels.  I think every male on the planet hates Michaels (it's a craft store)--Aaron is no exception--but he did ok.  He did well enough that I decided to kill the last 26 minutes at Marshalls--there may have been my mistake, I apparently overestimated him. Luckily my amount of public humiliation was minimized because the store wasn't busy.  We walk in and he starts making noises, which makes people stop and stare.  I walk over to the shoes and he sees a mirror so he drops to the ground, screams (a happy scream), and makes funny faces at himself in the mirror.  I'm trying to get him off the ground, and an employee is peeking around the corner staring at me.  I just smile at her, and pull my son up to standing.  Awesome.  We walk through the store and people just look over at us because he's making funny noises--no big deal, I'm used to it, and I hardly notice it (not really, but in general I don't care what people think).  And then he decides to go big or go home (or maybe it's go big so he can go home).  We walk by a fellow shopper and he lets out the longest, loudest burp you could imagine.  It echoes.  She looks over in horror.  I want to die (ok, maybe that's a little extreme).  How about I want to pretend like I've never seen this kid before in my life.  To make it worse he starts gulping air in preparation to let another one go.  I'm telling him to knock it off, while trying to get out of there as fast as I can.  Good times for a Thursday night.  I decide it's time to wrap it up because I don't know how many more of these he's going to let off, but I know he's not going to stop until we're out of the store.  I hate being manipulated like that!!!  We got back in the car to go pick Daughter up--of course he was nice and quiet on the ride home.