The Paperclip Incident - Parenting NH - Dec. 2008

(Publised in the Dec. 2008 issue of Parenting NH):

The Paperclip Incident

"Mommy, I ate a paperclip." The words trembled from the quivering lips of my four year old. I looked up, and tears were splashing down her blotchy red cheeks. Immediately broken from my mini break of ice cream and a women's mag (while, admittedly, the kids were parked in front of a Wiggles movie), I leapt into action.

Like a reporter on the verge of a huge exposé, I peppered her with questions: "When did this happen? Did you swallow it just now? During the Wiggles?" She replied, "No, it was a really long time ago. Like last year." This is a child who, despite her firm grasp of months, has not yet connected with the concept of years. As a result, I was a tad skeptical about her timeframe. Racking my brain for events of significance, I inquired if the paperclip incident occurred before or after we moved out for renovations. She replied it was before the move ("when we still had the lead paint").

Not entirely convinced, I asked for supporting details. She supplied, "I was sitting on the couch when it was over where the big comfy chair is now." Relieved that she passed the fact check (the couch really was in a different locale prior to our move), I pressed on. "Where did you get the paper clip? Was it a metal one or colored?"

Her response, still teary but minus the sobbing, was that the paperclip came from her pink sparkly princess suitcase, the one upstairs on her desk now. And the paperclip was metal. This last bit of information I found, senselessly, assuring.

Perhaps with all the focus on evil plastics as of late, the thought of just simple metal meandering through my daughter's GI track was the lesser of two evils. Of course, then I had to call my husband to determine the metallurgy of a standard paperclip (any possibility of lead?).

Upon recounting the incident, I anticipated my husband would reassure me in the lovingly condescending tone he occasionally adopts when I have overreacted and tiptoed toward paranoia. Shockingly, his response was: "That's not good pal. That's not good at all." Now, panic began to set in. Heart racing, face flushing, ears ringing panic.

He wanted to know how she was. Any abdominal pains? Any bleeding? The inquiries shot at me like I was one of his patients in the ambulance. He wanted to establish a timeframe. When I shared that, to the best of my knowledge, it was pre-renovation, he exhaled audibly. With a markedly relaxed tone, he advised that since we were looking at five months ago, the offending paperclip had undoubtedly passed.

I was unconvinced. After all, I was the one sitting with my distraught daughter who, for reasons completely unbeknownst to me, had just recalled the paperclip ingestion incident. I was the one envisioning the damn thing somewhere inside my little girl. I was the one who checked on her every 20 minutes throughout the night. I was the one walking around the house paling at the sight of anything smaller than a toilet paper tube opening. I was the one second guessing myself: weren't they supposed to be done putting items in their mouth by the age of 4?

I was the one dragging my sorry sleep-deprived self out of bed the next day, while my firstborn leapt to her feet, repositioned the cat, and began performing a dance from the prior night's Wiggles video, volume full tilt, and all appendages swinging wildly.

My husband breezed through the paperclip incident unscathed, my daughter bounced back effortlessly, and I find myself with a new wrinkle and an irrational fear of office supplies.