Well, my son Ryan will be 5 years old tomorrow. To say that he almost didn't make it would be an extreme exaggeration. To say that I almost died laughing would be more likely. My son came running to me screaming at the top of his lungs and blood coming from his nose! I asked him what happened and he looked somewhat embarassed and said,"I stuck a bead from Rachael's jewelry maker up my nose and now it's stuck". After asking all the panicy questions such as "why did you do that!?" or "What were you thinking!?" I took a deep breath and dialed the pediatrician and asked the answering service to have him call me back. When they asked me what the problem was, I just had to laugh. His pediatrician and I are so used to hypervolimic shock, stress dose injections and comatose that to say that there was a bead stuck up my son's nose was almost comical. But if we thought that that was funny, what was to come next could qualify as hysterical. The doctor told me to rush him in to the ER to have it manually extracted because it could be inhaled into his lungs so I was not really laughing - yet. I thought to myself, after surviving all that we have survived so far, to lose my son to a bead up his nose was just not fair! We tried plugging up one nostril and having him blow and me blowing into his opened mouth. All that got me was wet!!! My doctor called in advance to let the ER know that we were coming and I got the children dressed to go out in this wicked thunderstorm. Just as I was tying my son's last sneaker, his eyes opened wide, his nose scrunched up and he let out a sneeze that sent the bead flying right into my eye and bounced off the wall. We both looked at each other and fell to the floor laughing hysterically. Whew, another "crisis" averted. Happy Birthday Ryan!!!!!!!