Successful Play-doh Extraction

So we’re at the doctor on Wednesday…

Doctor:  “Mark, um, the inside of your ear is blue.”  Looks some more.  “Did you put a bead in here?”

Mark (emphatically):  “No!”

Doctor:  “Does it hurt?”

Mark:  “No.”

Doctor:  “Do you have trouble hearing?”

Mark:  “Yes!”

(Inside my head):  THAT explains a lot.

Doctor:  “Well, it has to come out.  Schedule with the ENT.”

Scheduled with the ENT.  (I have to type it as ENT, not Ent–otherwise I has visions of Treebeard poking twiggy fingers into Mark’s ear).

Hastily rescheduled Friday morning after a sobbing Mark called from school that the 2 PM appointment overlapped the school Halloween costume parade.

ENT:  “Okay, Mark, let’s get that bead out.”

Mark:  “Will this take long?  The costume parade is at 2:30.”

ENT:  “Not if you hold still.”

MARK FREEZES

ENT:  “Oooaaaakkky.  It’s crumbling, so not a bead.”

Mark (indignantly):  “I did NOT put a bead in my ear.”

ENT:  “I think it’s play-doh.”

Mark:  “Oh.  That.”

(Inside my head):  The paper wad up the nose.  Now this.  You’re out of easy-to-retrieve-from orifices, kid.

In the car:

Me:  “How DID you end up with play-doh in your ear?”

Mark:  “I sleepwalk.”

Catch and Release

So Mark comes up to me with a stinkbug in his hand.  A dead stinkbug.  Very dead.  Upside down, legs curled up.

Mark:  “I caught this tinkbug.  I’m going to take him outside and rewease him into da wild.”

Me:  “Okay.”

On the porch, Mark waves his hand, clearly attempting to help launch the bug into freedom’s first flight.  The stinkbug falls to the floor.

Me (because I’m basically not a nice person, even to my own children):  “Did he fly away yet?”

Mark (neither daunted nor perturbed):  “He’s taking a rest first.”

Mark Uproots the Lilies of the Field

I bought Mark two new shirts the day I went birthday shopping with Kate and Grandma.  After one wearing, both look as ratty as the ones he inherited from Paul and Sam, the collars chewed on, the necks stretched out, something dark and sticky down the fronts.

If I were a better person, the moral of this story would be, ‘Don’t get hung up on material things.  If doesn’t really matter what he’s wearing.  The Lilies of the Field and all that.  So long as he’s not naked.  Goodness knows, some days, that by itself is an accomplishment.’

But the real me says, ‘Why bother getting him new clothes?’

Soap?

So Sam had to do a science project involving comparing the prints of his thumb and big toe, which he accomplished by coating both with marker and pressing them down on the paper.  Fine.

Then it was time to clean up.

Sam (from the bathroom):  “Mom!  It’s not coming off!”

Me:  Did you try soap?

A pause.

Sam:  Thanks!  It’s working much better now!

Ah.  Boys.