Eye got it

While there are plenty of things that you never want to hear your children say, I've got one near the top: "I THINK I POKED MY EYEBALL OUT!"

Yes, nothing enlivens a day of fun like gouging out your eye.

It happened at my parents' house. The kids were playing in a neighbor's magnolia tree, which is possibly the finest climbing tree ever assembled. From the din of play, I heard Parker scream.

Parker is a tough dude, and he usually doesn't overreact when it comes to being hurt.

Quick side story: About a week ago, he was running through the yard when he tripped over a ladder that was lying on the ground. He took a pretty good tumble, so I went to check on him with two of my sisters trailing me.

When I got down there, I found Parker lying on his stomach, and saw his foot turned in an incredibly unnatural way away from his body. When I grabbed his leg, I saw his foot flop to the ground. "OHMIGOD!!!" I yelled, thinking my son had suffered a Joe Theisman wound. No, turns out his shoe had come off. No foot inside of it. Way to stay cool, Mike.

So back to the eye poke: I made my way over there quickly, really hoping I wasn't going to find his eyeball rolling around on the ground.

Fortunately, the eyeball was still in his head. But he had run into a stick, which had jabbed in the corner of his eye. When he would take his hand away from his face, I could see it was bleeding. Yech.

I rushed Parker inside. My wife knew it was serious, as I normally respond to injuries thusly: "You'll be fine." He kept saying that he thought his eyeball was out. We assured him it was there.

Once we got him to sit still for a little bit, we were able to flush out his eye and - brace yourself - get the splinter out of his eyeball. I am fairly certain that "eyeball splinter" ranks high on the unwanted scale.

My wife decided that, even though I am one of the finest eyeball splinter technicians in the world, he should probably have an actual doctor look at him.

For what it's worth, the doctor, with all of that fancy medical school training, also diagnosed that his eyeball was, in fact, still in his head.

Parker was given some antibiotic eye drops, which he takes without any problem.

I am not sure how he does this, as I am 37 and still have a hard time putting in eye drops. Sad when you realize your 6-year-old is tougher than you.

He said his eyesight is still a little fuzzy, which will hopefully clear up soon. And, in the evenings, when he gets really tired, he sometimes says his eye hurts.

Not sure if that is because of the evil stick attack, or because he's 6 and tired.

Because no matter how tough you are, when you're 6 and tired, it sometimes feels like your eyeball fell out.