No, not FOOTballs silly, the OTHER kind...

I had one of those hold-your-breath Mom moments the other day. Riley was getting out of the bath and cheerily proclaimed, "Hey! Where did my ball go?" as he proceeded to fumble around his scrotum. Yes, well, exactly. One of my son's little four year old testicles had disappeared back up into, well, we weren't sure where it had gone.

First, my husband too a shot at finding it. Then, as Riley hopped and giggled, I tried to locate the missing testicle. Was it playing peek-a-boo with us? Where on earth does a testicle go, anyway? Jacksonville?

So first, I call my brother, and ER doc who is currently working nights. He's sleeping, but my sister-in-law tells me that he'll call back when he wakes up.

Not ten minutes later, my normally very laid-back brother calls, and he sounds a bit alarmed. It seems that this can signify a "surgical emergency" that, if not treated within a six hour window, would cause loss of the testicle, and writhing pain.

"Is he in pain?" he asks.

"Well," I say, "he's sleeping right now, so probably not. But now I'm starting to worry. He tells me no less than three times to call my pediatrician in the morning, and I fight the urge to go and wake him up and take him there NOW.

The next morning, still no complaints from Riley, so I drive him and Bella to school. Then I make an appointment for him to see the doctor. David, my brother, calls me AGAIN to ask how Riley's doing, making me all the more nervous.

Later, when I pick him up and tell him that we are going to the doctor so she can help him locate his missing ball, Bella proclaims, "I have your ball Riley! It's in my backpack!"

Just when will the psychotherapy begin for that poor child, I ask you?

Vincent comes home from work and reminds me that his friend's son had surgery recently to correct his ball, which had crept back up into...see, I don't really know where they go, but wherever it is, it's BAD.

I take Riley to the doctor, and he pulls his pants down (a favorite activity!) and stands up on the examining table. This is the part where she and I stick our faces no less than six inches from where my son's testicle is supposed to be.

"There it is," she says.

"Really?" I ask. "Where?"

"There," she points. "Can you see it jumping around in there when he giggles?"

We both lean in closer, noses almost touching my son's "special purpose." I see no sign of the lost ball.

"If you can see it dancing, it's not a problem," she asserts.

Uh....yeah. She actually used the word dancing in conjunction with my son's private parts. So, twenty bucks down the drain, but my son has two testicles, and that's a good thing. The left one is just sort of...hiding. Great. I'll take what I can get so long as no one needs to go exploring down there with a scalpel...we had enough of that when he was an infant.

In other ball news, being that we're from Philadelphia...

GO EAGLES!