Choking Hazards, Birthday Party & Bye Bye Baba

Over last weekend we had Bear's Birthday Party - can you believe he's THREE?!  Me either!

Bear has never really been one to put things in his mouth that are hard and small so we just assumed the risk wasn't there anymore.  The morning of Bear's party he was playing in the hallway and the two bedrooms while we were steps away in the living room, getting everything ready.  He came out and showed me a quarter he found on floor and asked me if he could put it in his piggy bank.  Of course I said yes and went back to what I was doing.  About 10 minutes later I head him cry out kind of muffled.  Tim and I both knew it was a weird cry and bolted to find him.  He was on our bed with the most terrified look on his face.  He was scared, I was scared.  Something took over me immediately and I looked in his mouth, leaned him forward and smacked his back – out popped a quarter.

This is scary and it was very real.  I am not saying this to scare anyone, but learn from our mistake.  Even if your child is older and doesn't seem to put things in his mouth, he may and when you least expect it.  Be prepared, know how to handle the situation and make sure your partner does too.

When you clean up, look around for things like bottle caps, coins, buttons and other items you probably don’t think about often.

On happier news, Bear’s party went great!  It ended up not raining but was a bit cloudy so we had emergency tents set up in the yard.  We have WAY too much food still in our fridge (I may have over-shopped) but he had so much fun so all the running around, cooking and decorating was well worth it!

Since the choking incident Nana brought up an excellent point.  Now that his teeth are strong enough to break through things (like rubber sippy cup tops) it may be time to bid them farewell. 

Since we got rid of the original Baba last year Bear has adopted the new soft top sippy cups as the new Baba.  He was pretty content with our method last time, I told him I was going to give them to a new baby who needed them now that he was a big boy and didn’t need them anymore.  He never asked for it again.

Since this method worked so well, we thought we would try it out again!  This time Bear decided to be a little more involved which was great.  I mentioned that it was almost time to pick out new big boy cups at the store and time to say goodbye to baba but he just screamed at me and said no.  So I dropped it. 

About an hour later I said we needed to go grocery shopping and he got all excited, looked at me and stated “I am a big boy so I can get a new cup!!”

At the store he picked out two new cups, a Lightning McQueen hard top sippy and a new hard top cup with Mickey on it that said “just like mommy’s cup” on the label and the top looks sort of like a starbucks coffee cup but doesn’t leak, neat!

When we got home, Bear helped decorate a box to put the old Baba’s in to mail to a kid who needed them now.  We used rubber stamps, markers and I even let him put the postage stamp on. 

Night time was hard at first, he kept asking me if his box was still there and we had to go look out the window to make sure it was there.  He had a few short moment of panic while trying to fall asleep when he wanted the baba but I laid down with him and we talked it out.  I explained that we give lots of things away when we don’t need them anymore like clothes, toys, etc so someone else can enjoy them just like we did.

He woke up several times during the night to ask “Mama, can I have my…..big cup?” and then this morning was curious why the box was gone and who was going to get it.  Luckily I have a friend with a baby boy and she agreed to take a picture of her son with the box to show Bear.

Very excited – this worked exactly as planned!

Love,
PlusPeace