Excitement

Last night we had some excitement here, although not of the best sort. Jennifer was home again, actually seeing us for the first time since Thursday morning, we had finished a nice dinner, the kids were almost tucked in, and the two of us were going to fall asleep while watching a few episodes of Lost. Good night, right?

We almost made it there. Ellie was nearly asleep, and I was finishing the tucking-in process with Ben. He had a few toys with him, as usual, and in his hot little hand he held two coins from some country outside of Chile. As I was finishing his prayer, he just casually reached up and popped one of the coins into his mouth. Since he was lying down, it slid immediately to the back of his mouth, and he started choking.

I propped him up, tried the finger sweep method of clearing a small child's mouth, and was encouraging him to cough, all the while shouting for Jen to come help. It soon became clear that the coin was lodged in his esophagus and the immediate danger was past, as he was able to breathe. We woke Ellie up and drove him to the urgent care center that is luckily about ten minutes from our house.

There they checked blood oxygen, determined he was fine (it ranged from 97-100) and took him in for x-rays.

During this, everybody was asking us what kind of coin it was, and were somewhat amused to find that we couldn't even identify a continent of origin. The kids "collect" coins, and we have them from the US, Peru, Mexico, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hungary, the Czech Republic, China, and the EU. I'm probably forgetting one or two, but you get the picture. The best I could do was say it wasn't Chilean - the kids don't play with money they know can buy bouncy balls or candy.

After analyzing the x-rays, they decided that it was likely to not pass through him naturally, which meant that we needed to relocate to the main hospital where they would have somebody waiting to extract it. We decided that it was best for Ellie to get some sleep, so we went home, and Jen and Ben then headed to the hospital.

A few hours later, somewhere around midnight or 1am the coin was extracted, and Ben was just sleeping. They used an endoscope so he had to be under general, and it wasn't clear how long he'd be asleep.

In any event, he woke up a few hours later, Jennifer brought him home, and we all woke up in the same house, not much the worse for wear. Ben has a bit of a sore throat (serves him right!) but is in good spirits, Ellie is tired, I'm tired, and the three of us missed our chance to meet Joe Biden this morning. Jen spent the last few days with him and his staff, and so this morning she is back at work taking care of whatever needs to be written up following meetings between the VP and foreign leaders.

For those of you who haven't seen the kids recently, I'll just mention something Jen pointed out last night. We've taken both kids to the ER/urgent care several times. For Ellie it has always been for croup or similar illnesses. For Ben it has been for when he slammed his thumb in a door in our house, and now for when he swallowed 50 Mexican centavos. That should help illuminate their respective personalities a bit.

I'm hoping that this takes care of our near-death experience quota for this assignment. I handled it in Cambodia, Ben took it here. I think we've done our fair share.

The big first day

Yesterday was Elena's first day of kindergarten. It feels like the last month or two have been just prelude to yesterday, what with all the shopping for the uniform, the purchase of her book for English classes, and the general excitement that has been surrounding everything even remotely related to St. George's College.

The morning (she starts at 8 and finishes at 12:30) went pretty well, her teachers said she was good, if quiet. That quiet won't last long, I'm sure, the girl loves to talk. Here are a few pictures.

If she looks nervous, it is because she is. She got a stomach ache as we
drove into the school parking lot.

This shows less anxiety and more of the cool old gate to the school.

In the classroom she found something that would have made Ben comfortable,
but large plastic dinosaurs are less important to her than to her brother. Ben
was with us, and as soon as he saw them he ran over and played until we left.

Puzzles are more her style. Behind her is one of her two teachers, Maite.
The little girl behind Maite is wearing one of the little smocks that the kids are
supposed to wear nearly all day. Sadly that is the one bit of the uniform that
she doesn't like, and today at dropoff burst into tears when told to put it on.
We asked her why she doesn't like it and she responded that she didn't like
"the style". I suspect she is annoyed that the boys wear brown ones and she
has the blue and white checkerboard kind.

That's all the photos we have, although we have more stories. The families in the class have been extremely welcoming, the parents more than the children, of course. That being said, Ellie has an invitation to a birthday party tomorrow (she's going to go) and we are invited to a BBQ at the school with the families from her class of 27. The other 26 started in the same pre-K class, and she is the only new one, which makes it a bit harder for her, but everybody seems to understand how difficult it is for her, and they all are trying hard to help.

Today's new thing is the bus - she will be riding it home after school every day. There is a driver and a helper, and all the buses are required to have safety belts by school rules, but I'm still nervous.

Right, well, that's all for now. I need to go drop off some drycleaning and pick up Ben. He's doing better on his own at the preschool than we had expected, which has made Ellie's transition easier for me to handle.