"I not gonna do that again."

"Amanda, come here!" Carl said. He sounded so excited that I stopped what I was doing and went over to the boys, who were sitting on the trampoline, enthralled with something. They had been playing with their new "shooting things" -- toys guns that spit little yellow balls about 3/4 the size of a pea.

Surely you see where this is going. I didn't at the time. Not yet.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Pete has a ball in here!" Carl replied, poking his finger in Pete's ear.

WHAT!? "Stopstopstop!" I cried, and broke into a run. I took Pete's head in my hands and looked in, but there was no ball to be seen. "Are you sure it's in there?" I asked, a question met by an enthusiastic "Yes!" from both boys.

I couldn't see it. "Okay, Pete. We're going to have to go to the doctor."

He started crying. I couldn't blame him. I'd have done the same thing.

After I got him calmed down, I asked, "Pete, why would you stick this in your ear?"

"I not know it wouldn't come out."

Right.

Well, it's a holiday, so the doctor in town isn't available. Rick and Carien are both gone. I woke up the young kids and headed next door to beg for assistance. They called the hospital in Den Bosch and took Pete there. I love nice neighbors.

They were back an hour later with news that the little ball had been stuffed five centimeters into Pete's ear. Six centimeters would have meant an operation. Whew. "And," said the neighbor woman, "the doctor suggests throwing all the little balls into the garbage."

"Sounds fine with me."

"No, I not want that!" Pete cried.

"And I didn't want you to put them in your ear," I said.

A pause. "I not gonna do that again."