Saturday, January 16, 2010

Tasting Snow

One of the many games we enjoyed playing was using a jump rope and wear it over our shoulder and then under our arms and pretend we were a horse while someone else drove us.

One Saturday there was a few inches of fresh snow covering everything and John, David and I decided to play horse again. Our barn was a big old spruce tree that had branches that touched the ground on three sides, the other side had an old propane tank that had been converted to an air tank to run some of the smaller machinery in Daddy's wood working shop. The hooks on the tank worked great as a place to tie our 'horse.'

On this particular day John was the farmer and David and I were the horses. I stood under the tree waiting for John and David to get back from their little run and have my turn. I was hoping they don't go to far because I wanted some fresh snow to run through to before we had all our little paths made.

Once they came back John unhitched David. As I prepared to have my turn David announced how great it was to have a fresh layer of snow that he can pretend to eat hay by licking the snow on the tank and proceeded to take a lick.

Unfortunately he didn't get to enjoy the snow because his tongue stuck to the tank and he couldn't get it to loosen. He started crying as I ran to get Mom, but before she could bring a pitcher of warm water he gave a hard yank and pulled himself loose, but cried even harder when he discovered he had left a good bit of his tongue still stuck to the tank.

Mom and Daddy tried to comfort him in any way they could think of. They were worried that he might never be able to taste again and have trouble speaking. For several weeks we had to put all his food through the baby food grinder but bit by bit his tongue healed until you could no longer tell anything had happened to it.

We had learned our lesson well and never tried licking snow on any metal surface again.

20 comments:

  1. What a hard lesson!! I never tried putting my tongue on frozen metal because my mother told me what happened when she did.
    Isn't it amazing that the body can heal itself so well. I would have thought all the taste buds would be gone forever.

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  2. My daddy had a warped sense of humor, and he told me to touch my tongue to the pump-handle on a cold day, when I was six or seven years old. I, too, left a little of my tongue behind. Nobody worried about it, though; and it only hurt for a couple of days.

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  3. oh the innocence of youth! glad his tongue healed.

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  4. Uh-oh, poor David. That must have been very painful. My sister and I used to play horse using jump ropes, too. Fortunately, we didn't lick hay off of metal!

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  5. Getting a finger stuck is bad enough, let alone the tongue.

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  6. Ouff! Poor him! :) I'm also glad his tongue healed completely. Indeed, the innocence and temerity of youth can be so dangerous sometimes! What adventure!

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  7. OWWWWWWWE! I know how much it hurts to burn my tongue on hot food - it hurts for days. And rats, you never got your turn to be the horse, did you? Brothers! Even the horses were probably shaking their heads at that one - ha ha ♥

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  8. Oh, what a story, poor little guy! I'm sure you told your kids this story when they were old enough to understand it so they didn't try the same thing, didn't you?!
    XOXO
    Joni

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  9. I know how he feels! I worked in a factory with a blast freezer and when I was coming out I thought hmm I wonder what would happen if I licked the door. I was 27! I opened the door and waved my arms to get attention as I was stuck tight and my boss had to bring over some warm water an set me free. Kinda cute and funny when kids do it but stupid and embarrasing for adults LOL

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  10. I tried that once on a sled. What was I thinking?? Guess I was not, I didn't pull the skin off but rather breathed my warm breath and it came lose. I never did that again.

    They say experience is the best teacher. It tests first and teaches later.

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  11. Oh no! I never did that and I'm glad I didn't. I wonder if any of my boys will.

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  12. That poor thing!

    I was so terrified of the cold that I didn't even want to touch metal things...

    Amazing that the tongue healed so well.

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  13. I look forward to reading more of your posts
    XoxoGapGirl

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  14. Ouch! That made my stomach do a flip flop thinking about it. Glad your brother healed in time.

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  15. That sounds so painful! Glad his tongue healed and he was able to taste again!

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  16. Ouch! That sent a shiver down my spine.
    Sunny :)

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  17. A painful lesson learned, he was lucky his tongue healed so well. I have heard of this happening before and wondered how things healed up after loosing a chunk of such a useful thing. Now I know, thanks.

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  18. Just like in the movie A Christmas Story! : )

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment. I love hearing your thoughts.