WHAT??? I can't hear you. Just let me just get this eraser out of my ear....

I've heard the stories.....

Red beads up little girl's noses. Green beans up little boy's noses. I've always felt pretty lucky to have side-stepped those Dr. visits. I've patted myself on the back for having such clever children who have never felt the need to stuff things up their wee noses....

Now I have my own story. Mine is not a nose story however. It involves an ear, an eraser and, you guessed it, my extremely clever boy Jacob.

Here's the interesting chain of events that led us to tweezers, blood and some pretty loud screaming yesterday afternoon.

Apparently the girl who sits next to Jacob likes to collect the silver bands off of pencils that connect the wood and the eraser. She sharpens the eraser to release the silver band. She puts the silver bands in a little box in her desk and strokes and admires them whilst exclaiming "shiny". (lest you forget.... this is Jacob's advanced class)

Silver band collecting girl offered up her newest sharpened, pointy eraser to Jacob after securing her newest treasure. Jacob walked away from her desk with it in his hand, a boy bumped into him causing him to lose his balance and fall into his desk. His elbow hit his desk and the hand with the eraser flew towards his ear, lodging the eraser- pointy side towards eardrum- firmly in his ear.

He went to the nurse. She couldn't legally try to get it out. Mark picked him up from school and tried to grab the eraser with tweezers. He got a hold of it momentarily but lost it and the eraser dropped further into Jacob's ear, out of sight. Jacob was crying now. Mark brought him home. We called the Dr. who felt confident they could handle it in the office.

(If anyone's looking for a pediatrician.....we love Dr. Whiting. It's a bit of a drive but the office is great. I usually don't have to wait long and the nurses are really nice. He has a female P.A. as well and I've really like her when she's taken care of us.)

When we got to the Dr.s office Jacob was really in pain. Every time we went over a bump in the car he winced and gritted his teeth. We went to 0ur assigned exam room and in came Dr. Whiting with several menacing looking instruments. Some tweezers with teeth. A long scissor looking clamp with the tiniest bend at the bottom and very small clamping area.

Jacob laid on the exam table and the nurse held his head and the Dr. started digging. It didn't take long before Jacob was wiggling and crying and asking him to stop. I came over and held his hands and told him to squeeze mine as hard as he wanted and do the "chill drill" (breathing slowly IN through the nose, OUT through the mouth) When he would start to fight and yell I would remind him to breathe and he really did well at regaining control. It took a long time for the Dr. to grab that darn eraser since the rounded end was facing out and filling the ear canal so nicely. There wasn't much to grab onto. Finally he pulled it out, cleaned the blood off of it and off his hear and gave it back to us for a souvenir.

On the way home I smiled as I remembered we had been in that very same exam room 5 years ago to get his kindergarten shots. That day there was no chill drill. There was no hand holding. There was just a screaming, squinty-eyed boy who refused to come out from under the chairs where he had crawled and tried to hide. The nurses were troopers and just got down on the floor and he got his shots right there under the chair. It was nice to think about the ways he's grown since then.

The silver lining: This morning when Jacob woke up, he came and found me, put his arms around me and whispered "Thanks for being with me at the Dr.'s office yesterday mom. It was such a comfort to know you were there. Thanks for letting me hold your hand. It really helped. I love you"

I love you too Jacob. You are my extreme kid. My Independent, my-agenda, grinning, mischievous, surprisingly tender-hearted, smarty-pants eldest son. You're so infuriating at times yet so much darn fun to have around. You always make my life interesting. What would I do without you?