Laughing so hard it hurts....

On a day when I made over nine hundred (900) cookies, five (5) batches of fudge, and had twenty (20) people over to help with it, it may surprise you that those events will only take the first few lines of this blog post. It was fun, and we will have all the goodies we need for delivering to a retirement community tomorrow.

However, the newsworthy part of the day happened after almost everyone left. One of my daughter's friends and her brother stayed later since their mom was working. She had finished dinner early, and was playing with Joshua. All of the sudden she came down, visibly disturbed. We were talking to one of the other kids and told her she needed to wait until we were done, and then we would help her. She went into the other room, and then started crying uncontrollably. I left Michael to finish the conversation, and went to find out what was happening.

I walked into pure hysteria. She was crying, and could barely wheeze out that Joshua had put her toe in his nose, and that now she was going to die. I asked her why she thought she was going to die, and she told me that you could get diseases from peoples noses. I told her that she was going to be fine, that she didn't have any cuts on her feet, and that she could wash her feet if she wanted to. The twins helped her get a bath going, and she jumped in, completely dressed and splashed water all over her legs and feet. I was trying to make the snack that was the follow-up to our previous conversation, so Michael went in when the foot bath wasn't calming her down.

Michael tried to reason with her. He helped her wipe her feet with disinfectant wipes, and then dry them. She was still hysterical, crying and crying uncontrollably, saying that she was going to die. I tried calling her mom several times, but wasn't able to get ahold of her.

I have to say, I was trying to be understanding, but Michael and I were laughing through most of this. It really was hilarious. I have no idea how she thought she was going to die from having her toe in Joshua's nose, but she really believed it. We really were trying to help, but laughter would bubble up in the middle of trying to explain immunology to a six year old.

So, I finally got her to snuggle with me. She was still crying, but at least she was only proclaiming her imminent death every couple of minutes. I asked her how she knew that she was going to die, and she said that her throat was already starting to hurt, and that was the first step. I asked her if she thought it might hurt because she was crying. She said she didn't think so. I asked her if she wanted to keep crying, or if she wanted to stop. She said she only wanted to stop if she wasn't going to die, but since she was going to die, she thought she should keep crying until her mom got there to pick her up. Since we had another forty five (45) minutes until that arrival was supposed to happen, I decided to try another tack. I pulled out my secret weapon; peppermint tea.

I offered her peppermint tea. I told her it would help her throat, and that it might kill any germs that were left after the disinfectant. After my brilliant explanations earlier, I was surprised that she was willing to try the peppermint tea idea. Her mom called just after she had agreed to the plan. She cried for a while on the phone to her mom, and then handed it back to me. Her mom didn't understand what was going on, so I explained that Joshua's toe had ended up in her daughter's nose. The mom's first question was if Joshua was okay. She had heard that someone was going to die while talking to her daughter, and thought that their might have been real damage done. I explained her daughter's concerns, and she relaxed. She asked again at the end of the conversation if Joshua was okay, and then said she would try to be there in about half an hour.

By the time mom arrived, the peppermint tea, and conversation with the twins had inspired a miraculous recovery. I helped Sarah find a bag to put her Christmas present in. While I found the bag, Sarah gathered the items. Then, she asked if we could give her friend a bottle of hand sanitizer, so she could use it on her foot next time she got it stuck in someone's nose.

Priceless......