Choke A Baby

Today while Elise was eating a snack of goldfish crackers, I had my back turned to her while I folded laundry. All of a sudden she shouts, "Boo boo cracker!" and I turn around to see her drooling like crazy. She was drooling, her eyes were all red, and then she started coughing. She made terrible retching noises a couple of times. She was choking on a stupid goldfish cracker.

My first inclination was to start smacking her on the back, but when we called 911 that time that she turned out to have croup, the operator said not to hit her on her back and instead try to let her cough out whatever might be in her throat on her own. So I stood there watching Elise cough and cry for a few seconds while I told her, "It's okay! Cough! Cough!"

Then she said, "Pick up!" So I took her out of her highchair and sat her on my lap. She was able to talk and cry, so I knew she was getting air. I gave her her milk. She took a sip, clearly had a hard time forcing down something in her throat, but then looked at me and said, "All gone!"

Yikes. Scary.

THEN

THEN-- get this. Husband walks in the house this evening after picking Henry and Georgia up from school and says, "Henry almost choked today. Like to death. A teacher had to give him the Heimlich maneuver." He put some video game token in his mouth and either tried to swallow it or sucked it into his throat somehow.

What the hell is going on? How weird that Henry and Elise both choked today.

Also, not long after Husband got home, Georgia smacked Clark in the head with the corner of a book. That has nothing to do with choking. Just another crazy baby injury. Clark got a big old red mark from it.

Anyway, the good news is that everyone's still alive.