Magnifying Glass and Tweezers

I woke early this morning to the sound of a boy saying my name, which around my house is Mama. As I do most mornings, I momentarily contemplated saying, "She's not here!" But I learned some time ago that telling him that stopped working when he was around 18 months old! So after asking him what was wrong he proceeded to tell me he woke up with a swollen penis.

So my first instinct was so say, "No kidding? Well so did your Dad!"

But I refrained. You might notice that I wake up a little cranky and sarcastic in the mornings. Not my shining hour of the day. So back to the swollen penis. It's not a little woody, but rather a swollen little penis that looks like a full sized mushroom. The kind you buy in the store. If you don't have little boys, the first time you see something like this it's pretty freaky. But as a mother of two boys, this is not the first time I've seen this, but actually it's always been with Cole. Usually it happens after he gets a chigger bite and after a little bit of benadryl and hydrocortisone cream, he's fixed up in no time.

So like the good Mom I am, I told him that it would be fine and I'd take care of it in a little bit. (Just as soon as I fall back asleep and snooze for another 15 minutes) But that was not to happen because about two minutes later he was back, calling that lady's name again that was not there!

"Mom, it's a tick. A tiny tick. That's what made my penis swell!"

A tick in the winter? So I reluctantly turned on the light and tried to see this tiny tick. And I could barely see a speck. So I ran off to get a magnifying glass and tweezers. It was on my way back to get this "tick" out when I realized the irony of the situation. If I had told my husband that I would take a look at his penis just as soon as I found the magnifying glass and some tweezers, I would probably be single! LOL I mentioned that to my husband on the way back to do triage and he didn't see as much humor as I did.

Turns out the "tick" was actually a splinter. That of course raises a whole other set of questions that I would rather not address with my seven year old son. I think I'll just pretend that it was a tick!