Week 48

Embry choked this week...yep that's right, choked. I was out at the park with some girls from my MOPS discussion group and I was letting her take little bites of an apple slice (not the skin) and ripping off pieces of a pb&j sandwich for her to eat. Then she looked up at me and was doing that mouth open, eyes wide, scared to death look that you get when you're choking. I have no idea how to give a baby the Heimlich and so I did what is probably very bad and started patting her back. She was trying to claw her way up onto me and I was trying not to look like I was panicking, but the only thing going through my mind was, 'my baby is going to die, right here, in the middle of a park, with 2 other moms watching and there's nothing I can do.' So I stuck my finger in her mouth to try and dislodge whatever was in there and she ended up vomiting up the last like 6 bites she had taken into my hand and down her dress. The bites came back up exactly the way they went in, whole. She hadn't chewed any of it, at all. I thought she was good at chewing, but apparently I was wrong and I'll be mashing up her food for a while. After that was over she started screaming probably cuz she was scared. I choked on a piece of bread when I was about 10 and my dad gave me the Heimlich and I know I was pretty shook up afterward, so I can't even imagine how she felt. Gosh darn, it was scary!! Worst part is, it's probably not the last time it will happen and I'm sure it happens to every kid/mom out there. I told the moms I was with that I had just been thinking on the way to the park how Embry had never choked on anything and they were shocked that she was almost 1 and still hadn't choked which leads me to believe it is a pretty common occurrence.

She's standing up on her own now and will stand up when you say 'stand up' and she's walking all over the place, even without being prompted. Walking is still not her main mode of transportation, but she's getting much better at it. She falls down quite often, but doesn't seem to mind, except for that one time where her face hit my knee before her hands could stop her. Oh yes, she can also point now. She says 'mama' much more often but doesn't associate it with me yet. A bonus development this week is that Embry started to chew on her crib railing. About 80% of the time when I go to get her out of her crib, she's got little white paint flecks all over her head, mainly around her mouth. Yucky. I wonder if maybe she'll grow out of this phase quickly or if I should invest in those plastic crib rail covers?

My birthday was great! We went to Apple Annies, found out that Embry is afraid of Sunflowers, went on a hayride, hung out in a pumkin patch, bought some veggies, had some delicious caramel kettle corn, went through a corn maze, found out that an umbrella stroller is not a good idea in a corn maze, and had some apple/cherry pie. I did not make it in time for the apple smoked burgers, which I was quite disappointed about, but that just means we'll have to go again sometime! Embry really seemed to enjoy herself and I had a blast. We got some great pics too! I'd post some but for some reason when I upload a pic on here it only comes up as code until I actually post and that would be confusing. Then we came home and my parents came over to babysit and they got me a balloon and made me a cake. Tony and I went to dinner at Sakura which is a japanese steakhouse thing where they cook the food at your table, then we met some friends to see 'Cronan the Barbarian' at the Gaslight theatre...it was hilarious!

We've been working on getting Embry's swing (I bought her a swing for her birthday, I don't know if I mentioned that before) hung up in the tree in our front yard. Very complicated. You're spos to have a certain type of hook with some plastic on it so the metal doesn't rub on the metal or something, but you have to special order those etc etc. Anyhow, I think we finally have all the parts to put it up, so Tony is going to attempt to get that done tomorrow morning. Speaking of Embry's birthday, I got all her gifts wrapped today as well as the party favors put together. I am having a slight issue though, I only have enough favors for the bigger (over 2 yrs old) kids, but none for the younger kids. I'm still wavering on what to do about that.