Baby it's COLD outside

After finally getting Miss M to school yesterday afternoon, (a whole different story) and then K to his preschool, Ms. D and I had a couple of hours without big kids that flew by. She enjoyed crawling around on the floor without an older sibling repositioning her away from the big kid toys (because the big kid toys were all put away) until she crawled just out of my sight. I heard a gagging sound and rushed to find her. She had found a piece of paper, put it in her mouth and started to choke on it.

I turned her on her stomach and rapped on her back a few times in an effort to dislodge the offending paper to no avail. She was still breathing, and still trying to purge the paper herself, so I wasn't panicked at that point. I didn't want to put my fingers in her mouth to do the "sweep" to remove the object because I knew it was paper and I feared pushing it further into her throat. Ms. D is tiny, and she has gotten various (supposedly non-choke-able) objects stuck in her mouth.

I moved her to an area where I could see better and thumped her back a few more times, trying to remain calm. She continued to gag and spit, bubbly drool was flowing from her mouth which I took as a good thing since there was still air for her to gag with and the bubbles had to get air from somewhere. After 4 or 5 thumps she gaged out a 2 x 2 scrap of paper.

I realize even more how dangerous this house with two older siblings is for a baby and I'm unsure how to keep her safe. There are pieces of toys everywhere in spots I would not think to look. I'm thinking we'll need to do a major purge with all small part toys being confined (in theory) to big kid bedrooms. A daunting task along with all the other major cleaning I need to do.

But today school is cancelled. It's in the dangerously cold temperature range. We'll be painting, baking bread and cookies, perhaps play PlayDoh.

Or we could get even more desperate. Check out what we have done previous winters when the mercury has dipped too low to go outside over at Midwest Parents.