So, Mia could have died last night.

The short story: Davy is at the movies with his friends. I'm downstairs reading. The girls are in bed. Mia screams from upstairs. I mean, SCREAMS. I run upstairs to find her sitting up in her bed wailing. It takes a minute for her to calm down enough to tell me she has swallowed a rock. I immediately know exactly what rock she's talking about--a small polished stone she got at a museum gift shop in New York. About the size of a grape. Apparently (she explained this part later, after she had calmed down), she had been rolling it around on her nose and her cheeks to feel how smooth and cool it was, and it rolled into her mouth. She gasped in surprise and swallowed it. From her reaction, I can tell that she's not choking. She's crying and talking, which are both good signs. But she's only four years old, and she can't tell me whether she actually swallowed it or it's lodged in an airway but not blocking it completely.

I call the doctor. Lots of questions are asked and answered, and Mia finally calms down. I am relatively certain that she has actually swallowed the rock and it is not restricting her breathing at all. However, now we must make sure it comes out. She cannot be apart from me or Davy until she actually passes the thing. And if she hasn't passed it in 4 days, the doctor will have to figure out where it is. Which means I'm going to Walgreens today to buy gloves and craft sticks. Use your imagination.

Or don't.

The most awful thing, much more daunting than the ideas of disecting poo for the next 4 days, is the thought that had she choked on the damn thing, I would very likely not have known until it was too late.

Sometimes this parenting gig is much harder than you expect. You do everything you're supposed to. You follow ALL the rules. And then your kid goes and swallow a rock.