My west coast brother has informed me that today is "International Sword Swallowers' Day." Which led me to the first logical question, why? I've seen some pretty spectacular demonstrations of sword swallowing but it has never inspired me to want to try it. But then I thought, if I was the mom in a sword swallowing circus family and wanted my toddler to follow in his father's foot steps, I'd start by telling the little one "No." Or maybe something more subtle like "You can play with your daddy's little sword but not the big one." If you have ever parented a toddler you know that telling them "No." (or some variation thereof) is the surest way to get them to do something. Case in point, when my son was about two and a half, his grandma had just moved into a new little house, and, while she watched him, I was painting her bathroom. A chore I was happy to do because it really was an awful Pepto Bismol pink. As I painted, I could hear them chatting in the living room while they ate some fresh cherries. Grandma had shown my son how to bite the cherries in half and spit out the pits, and all was well until I heard her say those fateful words "Now don't put that up your nose." Really! Why would you say that to a toddler? So we two were off to the nearby old Lutheran Hospital emergency room, where I learned, to my intense relief, that this was not an unusual occurrence. In fact the very kind ER doctor had a perfect little tool, a tiny wire loop, that he stuck up in my son's nose, looped around that cherry pit and pulled it right out. So the moral of this story is be careful about how you say no to toddlers. Some of us who are now grandparents or great-grandparents need to keep this in mind.
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