Swallowing Scare

A couple of weeks ago, Daddy allowed the kids to buy with some of their gift money a Martian Matter Alien Maker play set.  This can mold different alien figures in combination of colors about the size of a gold fish snack. Olivia and Evan loved it.

It was one night during the Olympics, Daddy and I were watching the games while Olivia and Evan played the alien maker set by the coffee table in front of us. Distracted by TV, Olivia and Evan would stop occasionally watching the games while they were playing.

Suddenly, my split vision caught Evan put something into his mouth and swallowed it while his eyes were totally fixed to the TV. My heart sank as intuition told me he mostly likely swallowed something he didn't intend to without realizing it.

"Evan, did you just swallow something?" seeing the little "aliens" next to him on the coffee table, I immediately asked him.

Evan moved his eyes from TV, looked at me and the little "aliens" on the coffee table and suddenly realized what he did.

"I ate an alien! I ate an alien!" he stared to cry, waving both his hands in the air, completely freaked out.

To make things worse, Olivia yelled at him: "Spit it out, Evan! Spit it out! Otherwise you are gonna die!"

Petrified, Evan started to scream: "Mom, get it out! Get it out! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"

What I worried the most was whether the material he swallowed was toxic and if so what if it degrades and how it would affect his body if we could not get it out soon. But I knew at the moment the most important thing was to calm him down first. So I held both his shoulders and talked to him in a very assuring tone: "Look at mommy Evan. Calm down, you are okay, you are not going to die, okay? Now let's try to spit it out."

I snatched him to the bathroom, washed my hands and stuck one of my fingers down to his throat. Meanwhile, Daddy told me that the label on the package says the "dough" is not toxic and ran upstairs try to find a phone number to call the manufacturer.

Evan did throw up something but not the "alien". He hated the gagging and cried for me not to do it again as "it hurts". But he continued putting both his hands on the toilet seat and bending his body hoping that if he maintained this position the alien would come out.

I wiped his face and took him and sat on the stairs. He was still very upset and begged me: "Mommy, get the "alien" out! I don't want to die!" you could tell he was truly scared.

"Honey, you are not going to die! Since you can not throw it up, it will most likely come out with your poop tomorrow."  I told him and tried to think what else we could do other than waiting.

Daddy came downstairs saying he could not get hold of anyone at the manufacturer to confirm the composition of the "dough" material but he called the poison center, told them what happened and they would call back.

I paged Evan's pediatrician, she called back and told us that she didn't think blockage would be a concern as Evan didn't appear having problem breathing. She recommended us go to the hospital and take an X-ray the next day to confirm that it is cleared out from his body. The poison center called back a little later saying they thought he would be okay too considering the label claiming non-toxic of the material.

Well, there was nothing we could do except wait and see. Evan finally calmed down. He was lying on the sofa and we started to talk about why he would put the "alien" in his mouth.   He said something in a low indistinct voice which I didn't catch but then seemed totally irrelevant, I did hear him saying at the end: "You care about me. You help me."

I was touched that he recognized that in language. "Of course I care about you," I said to him, "because you are my child."

PS:

Olivia later showed Daddy the package saying: "Look Daddy, it says Ages five and plus. Evan is already past five so he should have known not to swallow the 'alien'."

"Well, you know Evan. Maybe they should have labeled the package 'Ages 5+ unless you are Evan'." Daddy joked.