Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Mommy fail



Last weekend besides having a little St. Patrick's party, we did some spring planting, spruced up our front flower bed, and almost choked the baby to death.

Let me rewind.

Marshall has this weather-vane thing he plays with. He likes spinning it, blowing on it, and taking it apart and putting it back together. The "vane" (is that what its called?) fits over a small ball bearing.  Sunday he was playing with it and took the ball bearing off and was pretending to eat it. I told him "no mouth," and he put it back on and was leaving it alone. He doesn't put things IN his mouth anymore, so I wasn't really worried about it.

Later in the day I was sitting on the couch sending an email, Miller was on the floor under his gym thing, and Marshall was playing with toys. I heard him say "mouth" and looked up to see Miller choking. Like making that gagging face but not making any actual breathing or gagging sounds. I picked him up and patted his back and he seemed to be fine but I "knew" that Marshall had fed him the stupid ball bearing (I felt like such an idiot for not taking it away!).

I wasn't *positive* cause I hadn't seen him do it, and I know infants aren't good at swallowing solid things because they have that tounge thrust reflex... but I thought if his mouth was open Marshall could have pretty much dropped it straight down his throat. Jerad and I looked all around and couldn't find the stupid bearing.

Of course it was Sunday so we couldn't just call the doctor. So I did my normal "google Dr Sears"  protocol to see what you're supposed to do and things to watch out for. Apparently if the baby is drooling excessively the object could be stuck in the esophagus... well, he's a baby and is constantly drooling so that wasn't much help. If the breathing is rattle-y that could be another sign... well he caught Marshall's cold and is congested so we weren't sure about that either. While we were trying to decide if we should go to the ER for an x-ray or if we could wait until Monday and see the reg Dr.,  he fell asleep. 10 minutes later he puked up a TON of milk, mucous, and you guessed it, the ball bearing.

So everything was fine it was just stressful and I felt like it was my fault.

The End

1 comment:

.heidi.noelle. said...

Stephanie,
Graeme gets your blog in the morning through an RSS feed that he has, where he sees all his followings together. He read this one today and shared it with me, just now over dinner. He said it is by far your best blog yet.

I'm so glad Miller is okay, how much fun is it going to be to share these stories at their 18th birthday. Thanks for the perpetual parenting advice, because of you I'm going to be WAY less stressed as a parent when the day comes. And don't worry - it wasn't your fault!