Little Blue Egg

Saturday, the kid and I were in the backyard. I was doing some weeding, etc... in the garden. He was, well, doing whatever it is that he does while he roams around the back yard. You know, moving wood all around. Pulling a broken bench from one end of the yard to the other. Digging holes. Picking dandelions. Hauling who the heck knows what up into his play structure/club house. That kind of stuff.

I looked up, to see where he was with this grueling self-inflicted work, and saw he was walking towards me. He had his hands cupped, and was obviously carrying something ever so gently. "Look, momma. Look what I found over there by the tree." It was a robin's egg shell. "Isn't it beautiful?!", he said with wonder in his face, "isn't it amazing??!! I'm going to put it up in my clubhouse for safekeeping".

I was outside with baby E on Monday afternoon. It was (finally) a beautiful day. Our spring has been short on those. I was, again, weeding and doing garden work. He was also wandering around doing the stuff he does. Digging in the dirt. Eating the dirt. Finding piles of dog poop. (Dearlord, please don't let him be eating those.) Watching rollypolly bugs roll around and try to escape. Killing ants. They're apparently not at all good at escaping.

He sauntered on over towards me. Looking quite pleased with himself, I might add. Which, you know, tends to set off those mama alarms. Upon closer observation, he had something on his face. Little white specks. Then, upon very close examination, they were actually blue.

I knew immediately what was all over his self-satisfied face. "E, did you eat something?" "Yup. E eat a egg. A boo egg." "Was it tasty, E?" "No, momma. Not good." "Yeah, I didn't think so. Lets not eat anymore outside eggs, okay?" "Okay. E eat dirt."

I started to reply that we shouldn't eat dirt either but then I remembered two things. First, pick your battles, momma. This one's about bird eggs. And second, I was known in my daycare days (aka when I was about E's age. Hell, honestly, when I was older than that) as the "dirt eater". Yes, yes I was. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't "just" dirt.  And I survived.

For the record, I totally freaked out about the egg and asked the MD's at work whether I should be concerned. They laughed at me. They assured me that he'll be fine. And, in fact, he is. They're enjoying still giving me a hard time about it.


Today's Lesson: It's highly unlikely that your child will get either salmonella or histoplasmosis from eating a robin's egg shell. Thankfully.