This post could alternatively have been titled, "She doesn't stick to the refrigerator," or, "Head games with a 6-year-old."

Emily was messing around with her toys yesterday, and goofing around, and generally being 6. And somehow, though no one knows quite how, she swallowed a magnet.

Now, before you start imagining scary things, let me be clear: it was a magnet about the size of her pinky nail. Some little pebble-like thing, part of a Museum of Science type kit, not bigger than a Tic-Tac. So, she is safe and not endangered and so on and so forth.

BUT. Since (a) she did a stupid thing, and (b) she is not physically in danger, that therefore implies that (c) I am Constitutionally required to mess with her. (I can't remember which Amendment that is, but I'm sure it's in there somewhere.)

So, I've spent some time pointing to various household objects - the cat, the TV, the coffee table - and saying, "See that? Don't eat that." And hilarity ensues. Then, we've been discussing which things are metal in the house, and wondering whether she would stick to them: the oven, the computer, the ceiling heat vents. And more hilarity ensues. Even she gets into the game, which is a delight to me because I don't know how I would cope if I raised a humorless child.

Though she also has been true to her Drama Queen self, and frequently has complained of a bellyache, and called me to her room several times after bedtime last night, to ask things like, "Are my bones made of metal? Will it stick to them? What if the magnet grows bigger in my belly? Should I sleep away from the [metal] railings on my bunk bed? My belly hurts." But I went on an evening Friendly's run for the grown-ups, and since she's got the week off from school I got her a sundae too. Astounding, I tell you, how much better a Monster Mash mint sundae can make a girl's stomach feel. In such a short amount of time, too!

And in a fun afterward, she came out tonight, well after bedtime, to tell me, "Mom, guess what? When I pooped earlier, in the bath, well, no, not IN the bath but when I got out and used the potty during bathtime, well, I think the magnet came out of me then because now my stomach feels all better!" We had her go rub up against the fridge, and, no, she didn't stick. What a relief.