Do You Die If You Swallow Pennies?

Call it mother's intuition, but when I woke up Monday morning I just had a feeling something was going to go wrong. I remember making a mental list of all I had to do before Thanksgiving, and knew that this was the one and only day I had to do them. . .my luck was never that good. . .right??

And so the day began:

Got the two kids off to school--check

Exercised--check

Jackers dressed-check

Looking for keys. . .found, and in hand to go. All of a sudden a very serious Jackson comes to me and says, "do you die if you swallow pennies?" I replied, "I don't think so, but you may have to go the doctor if you do . . .so don't."

Jacker's then says, "O-tay, but what if I already did?"

Me: "You are joking, right?"

Jack: "Maybe." Long pause, longer pause. "But, I might have."

Me: "Seriously? Did you forget to put your brain in when you woke up this morning?"

Jackson: "Call the doctor, and then call grandma." (My children seem to think Grandma is the know-it-all when it comes to stuff like this; she usually is!)

So that is exactly what I did. While on hold with the doctor I called my mom. Both encouraged me to go to the ER to make sure it was not stuck in his esophagus.

I will admit, the car ride to the ER was not pleasant. I did a lot of thinking out loud, except for the four letter word of choice!! Jackson was totally quiet the entire ride, until we got to the hospital when he just had to make sure he was not going to die. My first response was that the penny wouldn't kill him, but I was about too. He then asked if you go to the "kid jail" for swallowing pennies. He was white as a ghost at this point and terrified for his future.

To make a long story short. The X-ray showed the penny in his stomach, and just waiting for nature to take it's course. For the next few days Jackson pooped a lot, and would stick his head in the toilet to examine each stool. We never found the penny, but I lied one day and told him that I thought I saw something shiny in the toilet. He believed me, and now he tells me that pennies are "spicy" and he hates spicy things.

Lesson learned. . .I hope.