While sitting on the couch, feeding the baby, I hear my two year old pipe up: “I eat pennies!” Distractedly, I respond with, “No, you don’t. We don’t eat pennies,” and went back to feeding the baby. He said, “Yes, I do!” I began to come to the realization that I should likely question him further. I asked him if the penny went down his throat and I touched his neck. He said yes. I asked him if it was a brown penny or a grey penny. He said yes. We showed him different coins and asked which one he ate. He said yes. To all of them. I called the nurse and we decided it was likely fine; we would just have to scan his stools for the next few days. I decided to take it a step further. I’ve designed a scientific experiment. Here are my findings:

Hypothesis:

My two year old swallowed a penny. It will come out in his poo.

Experiment:

I will use three specific methods to prove that my two year old swallowed a penny.
Control: Subject’s three year old brother.
Method 1: Two year old subject was placed on a wooden table aside his favorite stuffed puppy. Subject was stretched supine on the surface of the table. Subject was scanned with a metal detector.
Method 2: Two year old subject was placed on an x-ray table. Subject was exposed to a form of electromagnetic radiation, forming images of the subject’s interior.
Method 3: Wait.

Analysis:

Method 1: Metal detector bleeped at two separate pitches, indicating an object made of copper and another of undetermined composition.
 
 

Play with sound.

 Method 2: Subject was exposed to electromagnetic radiation in order to view ingested foreign object.

 
 

 
Method 3: Two days after ingestion, the penny was discovered in subject’s diaper.

Conclusions:

My two year old did, in fact, swallow a penny. The penny came safely through his digestive system and was expelled in his stool.

Control: No bleeps. No pennies swallowed.

*No children were harmed during this experiment.