The curious disappearance of the Lego sausage

Contrary to what you may be thinking, the title of this post is not some allusion to story about a game of hide the sausage, which would so unbefitting of a family blog like this one. Rest assured, this post is exactly as it says in the title; the curious disappearance of the Lego sausage.

Last week was half term and also free Lego with The Sun week. A week where I had to do a mad dash to WH Smith every morning to buy four copies of The Sun (although I usually pay for four and take one) so that each of my offspring has a tiny bag of Lego loveliness. The boys all adore Lego, even the teenager and even though A is too young, I have been getting a set to build with her so that she didn't feel left out.

What! Am I completely crazy letting a two year old play with Lego? What about all those small pieces? No I am not crazy and yes I know about the small pieces. A is very sensible with Lego as she has grown up surrounded by it as we have so much in the house and she has never once put a piece of Lego in her mouth...until now.

So Sunday's Lego was a nice little Lord of the Rings set with a character and a little stove type thing. With it came a small, thin red sausage. A seemingly harmless little thing. We built the set and A and I were playing with it at the table. Then the online shop arrived and I started to put the shopping away. A suddenly rushed at me retching and saying that she felt sick. I gave her a cuddle and she seemed ok, so I asked her what she had eaten. "A sausage" was her reply. I was confused and asked her what she meant. She repeated that she had eaten a sausage and then I had a light bulb moment. The Lego sausage!

I checked the set and sure enough the offending sausage had disappeared. It was quite small but I mentioned to my husband and he went completely off the deep end into panic mode and was all set to rush to hospital. I wasn't convinced so we went for the trusty method of checking in with NHS Direct for some advice about what we should do. Looking back, it must have sounded pretty ridiculous hearing how a two year old girl had eaten a Lego sausage. You couldn't make it up, could you? Apparently they have had stranger.

Interestingly, their advice was to take her straight in to A&E. My husband took her straight in and after a chat and an examination he was told that as there were no sharp edges that might damage the bowel, it would be best to leave it. If she had swallowed it it would pass through her system and shouldn't cause any damage. However, if she had inhaled it rather than swallowed and it had gone into her lungs, although it won't cause any damage, she will develop chest infection like symptoms and will need an operation to have the sausage removed.

So far, she seems fine and I have made it very clear to dear husband that I draw the line a long way before I will rummage through poo; even it has come out of the bottom of one of my gorgeous children. I will keep a close eye on her and hopefully the story of the curious disappearance of the Lego sausage will end happily.

As for the Lego, it certainly made me realise that I do need to be more careful about the smaller pieces and small things generally as had this been a Lego brick, the story could have been very different. I also have to admit that my husband was right to get her checked over too and that's not something I say very often.