I love to blog. It is cheaper than therapy - which I desperately need much of the time.
Today's post will not be philosophical and in fact will be kind of gross, but if you have children (or even if you don't) you will likely get a chuckle out of it. Maybe you will laugh because you can relate too well or maybe you will laugh and say you are glad it was me and not you. Either way, go ahead - laughter is as good as therapy too sometimes and I don't mind a bit being the one you are laughing at.
Here is our fiasco of the day...
Some good friends of ours from Naples, inspired by our big move, decided to take a family vacation road trip out west. They have been on the road for five days now and today we met them a couple of hours north for Joshua to join them on the Pink Jeep Tour in Sedona. We arrived about an hour early and since all of my children have the middle name "hungry," we found a cute Mexican restaurant right out on the main street to grab a bite while we waited on our friends.
Unbeknownst to me, we also named Patrick "hungry" and he wants to eat any and everything that his brothers and sisters eat. Hence, the fact that at two years old some of his favorite foods are almonds, popcorn, and corn chips. Yes, I know they made the top five in the list of choking hazards for children - no, I don't give it much thought when he is chomping away on them.
Today, at the Mexican restaurant of course they served up some chips, salsa, and guacamole. Patrick's favorites! The spicier the better. I'm serious. Anyway, he was eating away for a good twenty minutes.
That's a lot of guac, y'all.
With a chip in his mouth, Patrick reaches for his water cup and takes a big slurp. I guess he forgot he had the aforementioned chip already in there and tried to swallow it along with the water. Probably why chips made the top of the choking hazard list, and why "good" moms don't feed them to their two year olds. The chip lodged in his throat and he was choking. Like, seriously, couldn't breathe kind of choking. I used to panic about choking and say in a squeaky, panicked voice to my husband, "Stan, Stan, the baby is choking!!" Over and over and over. Well, Stan wasn't there today, and I don't panic as easily as I used to. So, calmly (if I do say so myself), I picked Patrick up out of his seat and was planning to do a little "baby heimlich." Now, I have never actually had to do the heimlich on anyone, but I am confident I could pull it off, in some form or fashion, if I had to. Anyway, about the time I picked him up, he coughed and I could tell he could breathe, but the chip was definitely still in there. He was trying to cry, I imagine it was scratching his throat, and just then, he decided to take matters into his own hands and before I could stop him, he shoved his fingers down his throat.
You moms reading are starting to visualize what happened next, aren't you? Yep, twenty minutes worth of guacamole projectiled out of his mouth and straight down the front of my v-neck t-shirt. I had my back to the rest of the patrons of the restaurant, but all my kids saw it and in unison they all groaned, "Ewwww!" Which of course drew the attention of the rest of the restaurant.
We were sitting mercifully close to the bathroom and I turned as quickly as I could to try to get in there. However, apparently Patrick could still feel a piece of chip in his throat, or maybe just the scratchy feeling, but for whatever reason, he gagged again and - yep, you guessed it - another projectile flies over my shoulder and splats on the floor of the restaurant, right in the path from the tables to the kitchen. The only thing that could have made it worse was if a server had exited the kitchen, slipped in the puddle, and well....you know, like a bad Disney movie.
I got in the bathroom to assess the damage. Poor thing, Patrick was a little shaken up, but true to form, he didn't cry. Just looked at me with those huge greenish brown eyes, surrounded by ridiculously long eyelashes that were sparkling with tears. I kept kissing him and hugging him, which of course pressed all that guacamole filled puke into flattened chunks, which were all over both of us, down my shirt, pooled in my bra, and in my hair. It was lovely indeed.
The girls ran in the bathroom, looked around, gagged, and then ran out. Sticking their heads back in they asked, "Should we go buy you both a new shirt at the souvenir shop next door?" Yes, yes you should.
A very kind waitress with two young children of her own came in, refrained from gagging, and gave me a washcloth. Soon, the girls returned, Patrick and I washed up as best we could, and we changed our shirts. When we got back to the table our food had arrived. Like any mom of young children would do, I sat down and ate every bite.
Go ahead and laugh. It is just another day in our life.
The End
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