Everyone used to tell me that because Ella was such an easy baby, my next baby would be hanging by the draperies. To solve this problem, I made sure we ridded the house of any draperies. Problem solved. Now as a disclaimer, hearing this about Ella wasn’t easy to process. While the practical side of me knew that I was getting off easy with my non-mobile baby who was totally content to sit in one place until she was 18 months, it still hurt. I wanted her to be getting into things. I knew something was wrong with her and I couldn’t fix it. So sure, it was convenient, but it wasn’t easy psychologically.
Well now, I’ve got my curtain climber in the form of Lillian. She’s just intrinsically curious about everything. So curious that if 9-1-1 was harder to remember, I’d have to program it into my phone. In the last day and a half, I almost had to dial it – twice.
The first mishap was actually pretty humorous. I don’t think I would have actually called emergency responders for this one, but it could have necessitated a drive to the ER. Lillian was playing in the living room before bed and happened upon the vent in the floor. She poked her fingers in one of the grates and pulled it out, then proceeded to poke her entire hand in each individual grate. And of course, there was one opening that wasn’t as wide as the others, suddenly three little baby fingers were trapped. Needless to say, she freaked out. Lily yanked her hand so hard the entire grate pulled out of the floor and now I had a free wheeling baby with an HVAC grate on her hand. I was able to hold her screaming-self down and extract the little fingers, but I was prepared to use cold water and cooking spray had the situation warranted.
The second mishap wasn’t funny at all. We’d just dropped Ella off at school and I was in the kitchen getting Lily’s bottle ready. She was tooling around like usual. She crawled into the kitchen and seemed to be chewing on something. This in itself is not that unusual because she likes to chew on her tongue and practice making funny noises while she contorts her mouth and tongue around. Then it dawned on me that Ella had left a few orange wedges on her breakfast plate, which I hadn’t cleared yet. Perhaps Lily had gotten one and was chewing on a piece of orange. I picked her up and peeked in her mouth, didn’t see anything. Checked the plate on the table, it hadn’t been touched (shockingly since Lillian frequently pilfers from Ella’s plate). She kept chewing though and eventually started to gag and cough. I offered her the bottle thinking maybe she had some phlegm from her cold. She took a few drinks from the bottle but continued to gag and cough. I gave her another finger sweep and felt something in the back of her throat. It wasn’t rigid and I couldn’t really get to it. Then she really started to gag. I picked her up, put her head down and gave her a few back blows as I walked to the couch. I then put her on the couch and pinned her down as she fought me, pried open her mouth and I could see the tip of something. I jammed my finger in to attempt to pull it out. But I didn’t know what it was, how big it was or how far it was down. I was ready to call 9-1-1 within seconds, playing it through my head that I’d put them on speaker phone, unlock the front door, etc, etc…But, I was able to get a hold of the little culprit. A piece of clear tape. Once the danger had passed, I was flooded with emotion and just shaky and crying. It would have been so easy for that piece of tape to have been inhaled deeper and then further compromised her airway. That was really one of the first times I’ve had to use my first aid/CPR skills. However, I was so happy to have the training and at the time, the presence of mind to stay calm and almost remove myself from the emotion of the situation. As if to prove a point to me, Lillian proceeded to put every single thing she could find on the floor in her mouth. Even though I thoroughly vacuumed the floor, she still found little pieces! So now, I eagerly await Lillian’s walking. I dreaded it before, but now I’m ready. The more she walks, the less her little hands are on floor finding every piece of debris on the floor. The bright side to the cold weather is that she’s not outside crawling around eating bugs, sticks and rocks…so we’ve got that going for us.
Long story short: know CPR. Choking happens so quickly and can go from coughing to blocked airway even faster. Even if you just watch videos online, learn something so you can be helpful.
Speaking of being helpful, here are my two little helpers “folding laundry”. They’re pretty proud of themselves!
After dinner, I did something I rarely did, I dug out my kid music from my preschool/Kindergarten teaching days. Anyone who knows me knows that I find children’s music so annoying. I can’t imagine a worse scenario that having to sit in traffic AND listen to that. I know, worst teacher ever. But, I just can’t bring myself to listen to the music. If you can stand it in your car, then big props to you. But, I was in a pretty jovial mood so we had a dance party. Part of it I can attribute to the frigid temps outside. It’s too cold for me to even justify going to Target. THAT is cold. We have cabin fever big time. It doesn’t help that Loran’s either been travelling or participating in a work training/dinners almost all of January. We’re going stir crazy so it was time to dance! In went Kindergarten Hits and we jammed out to such memorable tunes as: “Do Your Ears Hang Low”, “This Old Man”, and a rousing song entitled “Manners” which highlights the merits of keeping your fingers out of your nose. We were one black light away from opening our own little dance club. I was pretty proud of my mad-crazy mom skillz. Everything was going so smoothly as we headed into the bedtime routine. But of course, Murphy’s Law struck. The younger Gutt had a bit of a poop accident that in the end, worked its way into her hair. So, impromptu bath for that one. Then, after Lillian had been pj’d up, and I left to hang up her towel, Ella peed on the rug. Despite the end of the night deluge of bodily function, both girls were in bed by 8. Huzzah! Then I was able to tackle the laundry that they’d “folded for me”.
But, we’ve made it to Friday. It’s –17 degrees this morning (without wind chill). Ella is safely tucked into school. Lillian is currently bucking her morning nap despite highly needing it. Nobody has necessitated emergency rescue…yet…however, I was greeted this morning by a pantsless Lillian. Coldest night of the year and Lil decides she needs to take it on commando. If she hasn’t killed me or caused me to be committed, this blog is going to get a lot more interesting in the teenage years.
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