On an otherwise ordinary day, an extraordinary thing happened.
Four little words. That’s all it took, and the entire day changed in an instant. Tears started streaming down faces of the two adults in the kitchen. The words sent one to his knees unable to catch his breath. The other, also unable to breathe, immediately held onto a counter top next to her in order to save herself from falling to the ground. She too bent over from the impact of the words.
It wasn’t just what was spoken, but rather the matter-of-fact way in which they were delivered. Truly it was the funniest thing either had heard in a very, very long time.
Four little words spoken by a little red-headed girl, not even 3 years old, changed the mood of the otherwise dismal rainy day. So just what was spoken and by whom? Well, for that, Dear Reader, you’ll have to wait to read the entire story. The beginning is below. (Now don’t you skip to the last paragraph – I’ll know.)
It’s universal. Every child, no matter where in the world, has done it, not once but multiple times. As a result, every mom has had to deal with it: kids eating something that shouldn’t be eaten.
My three brothers, The Sister and I were no exception growing up on Flamingo Street. In our family, it wasn’t a matter of if, but when we would try to eat an inedible item and whether said item would cause a trip to the hospital for retrieval or a two- or three-day wait for a trip to the bathroom for it to appear.
Oddly, each of us kids had a favorite item we loved to ingest. Though I must admit the memory is a long distance in the past even for me to recall clearly. For yours, truly the tasty item was the penny. Mom said by the time I’d reached the ripe old age of 5, Mom said she retrieved about two dozen. Even to this very day, I have issues touching the copper coin that bears Mr. Lincoln’s likeness. Those pennies Mom retrieved days after I had swallowed them are still out there somewhere.
Twin Brother Mark’s nonedible was marbles. Not the big ones the size of jawbreakers, but the smaller ones the size of … well, marbles. Why he liked swallowing them made no sense to me. Not that I’m admitting to trying to eat a marble a couple of times myself, mind you. But I can truthfully say marbles lack the coppery goodness of a penny.
Older Brother Richard, he enjoyed snacking on dimes. I think quarters and half dollars were all too large. Nickels had a picture of a buffalo on it, and even on his hungriest day, Richard couldn’t eat and stomach a buffalo. With all the pennies in our house mysteriously disappearing, that only left dimes. Even though he was the eldest, I thought Richard eating dimes didn’t make cents.
Don’t really know if Big Brother James enjoyed eating odd things, but he never had any BB’s for his gun. Even The Sister got in on the abnormal snacking. For her it was spare buttons off Barbie’s clothing. Why, I don’t know, but I do have a theory. Buttons are much easier to ingest than zippers.
So just how does our travel through the gastronomical oddities of my family past bring us back to the present and the end of this story? Well, the two people in the kitchen were yours truly and the Mean Lady — the nickname given the mother of our two darling granddaughters.
(We lovingly call her the Mean Lady because she keeps taking our grandchildren away from us. Only a mean lady would do that. Strange, just because she gave birth to them, cares for them, and raises them, she thinks she can have them anytime she wants. I know. Gigi and I think that is silly also.)
A small green plastic frog was just brought to me by our soon to be 4-year-old granddaughter, Little One. She asked if I could use my hot glue gun to glue the missing eye back on. This request prompted me to ask where the missing eye was. She said she didn’t know.
That’s when her younger sister skipped into the kitchen and latched onto my leg. Sweet Caroline thinks Big Papa here is a tree that must be climbed whenever he is standing up and not moving. I tried to shake her off, as usual with no success.
I asked Caroline if she knew where the eye of the little green frog was. She answered, “Uh huh.” Answering me distracted her, and I was successful in freeing myself from her whole body grasp. I asked her again where the little green frog’s eye was. Skipping out of the kitchen she replied, “It’s in my tummy.”
Our laughter echoed throughout the house.
Whether it be coins, marbles, BB’s, or Barbie buttons, parents and grandparents must always be on watch for any bite-sized item around small children. Even as vigilant as I am, somehow Sweet Caroline still had the time to eat a frog’s eye.
So for all of you who skipped ahead, did we finally find the frog’s eye? Yes, it eventually made it’s way through Sweet Caroline, emerged, and saw daylight once again. It just took two days to find the way out. And that’s the end of this story.
[Rick Ryckeley has been writing stories since 2001. To read more of Rick’s stories, visit his blog: storiesbyrick.wordpress.com.]
