I recently gave Joshua a whole plum to eat. Rebecca was eating one, and he said he wanted the same thing. I'm happy when they eat fresh fruit, so I didn't think twice. The kids sat quietly at their little white table, happily chewing down the juicy fruit. Then, for no apparent reason, Joshua stands up and starts asking for Mommy (Mommy was out for dinner with her friends, there was only Daddy). Whenever he experiences any kind of discomfort or stress, it's right to Mommy he goes....so I knew something was wrong.
I looked down at what remained of his snack, and saw only a few pieces of purple plum skin that he had peeled off. So what happened to the rest of the plum...including the pit!!!???? Uh Oh.
"Joshua, did you swallow the pit?", I asked. "No", he said. One more time, a little sterner..."Joshua, did you swallow the pit?"
"Stop talking about it", he tells me. So, I stopped. He seemed fine. My guess was that he became uncomfortable while the pit when down his esophagus, but once it made its way to his stomach, he felt much better.
The rest of the night was uneventful...well, except for Joshua stubbing his pinky toe and crying hysterically. But that's par for the course.
When Jen came home, she wasn't too pleased to hear what happened. "Why the hell would you give him an entire plum?" So we called the doctor, checked the web, and talked to family and friends. What we learned is that once the pit hits the stomach, there is very little danger. We just need to make sure that the pit finds its way out. Which it did, thank God. (I won't go into details).
Anyone else have such experiences?
8 comments:
What a great story. Happens all the time, but when it's your kid...totally different.
at least his big sister didn't tell him that a plum tree would grow out of him. that's what i used to tell my sisters when they swallowed seeds. fun!
Thank you for sharing such an interesting story. Has Jen read it? Perhaps you should have toned down her reaction so that the implication was more like, "Wow, that stinks" rather than, "You are an irresponsible jacka@#!! How can I ever trust you with our children again?!"
Glad I read this. I was googling swallowing plum pits because my 2 year old just did the same thing - stupid me forgot to pit it...
Yup. My 2 year old just did the same thing. He eats plums all the time, but usually hands the pit back to me. Live and learn.
Just so you know--if you are a parent who did the same thing and is googling to see if a trip to the ER is needed--your blog pops up ;) As I was reading it the doc called and told me that if it gets to her stomach she'll be fine...so your reasoning was correct.
Nice story. I like the included Plum picture.
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