Parenting frights

In the past week I've had a couple frights that I hope don't happen again soon.  One is a reminder of the danger of having a toddler around your infant, and the other is a probably a pretty common fright for many parents (at least I can remember having some similar frights when Evan slept "too good").

1) Emma's first taste of sugar

It was a lovely afternoon for a walk to the park.  So I loaded up Emma from her floor mat where she'd been playing into her car seat and was packing a backpack of snacks and water for us while letting Evan have a small snack.  The snack was marshmallows, because he had asked for them before his nap and I decided to give him a little treat after he took a good nap.  However, after I gave him a few and went into the kitchen to finish packing the bag he came in saying "I gave Emma a snack".  My heart skipped a beat and I rushed into the living room to find her.  I had visions of her mouth crammed full of marshmallows, or worse her already choking on them.  When I got into the living room I couldn't find her.  I looked on her floor mat and around the entire living room floor, but no baby.  I became even more panicked.  I asked Evan where Emma was wondering if somehow he moved her while giving her the snack!?  He pointed to where she was, sitting in her car seat already (duh!  my panic had made me forget that I put her there already) with a marshmallow in her mouth.  I fished it out as quickly as I could and then fished around to see if I felt any others in her mouth, while asking Evan how many he gave her.  He told me just one and that is all that I found.  I felt so relieved that she hadn't choked on it and that I was able to get it out quickly.  After I removed it from her mouth, you'll never believe what she did....she smiled.  Perhaps it was just her normal "hi mommy" smile that she gives me when she sees me, or maybe it was a smile of satisfaction from the sugar.  Evan didn't get his first taste of sugar until the frosted cake at his 1st birthday party, whereas here was Emma (not even 6 months old yet) sucking on a sugary marshmallow.

After it was all said and done I hugged Evan while holding back tears and told him how important it was that he never put anything in her mouth again. Sadly, this is a risk I cannot accept anymore, so it was just one important lesson for me that I can never leave Evan alone with her when he has food or anything else small for that matter.  

I feel like this ranks as my #2 scariest moment as a parent so far (#1 being when Evan fell down the deck stairs), and yet it ended up being okay in the end, it just could have been so much worse.   It makes me wonder how parents with more than one kid keep their younger ones safe from the older/innocent-yet-ignorant kids?  I mean, take me for example when I was the oldest child (3 yrs old) with a younger brother (2 yrs old) and baby sister (6 months old).  My brother and I picked our baby sister up and "helped her jump" off the bed.  After all, we were having fun doing it, so when my sister crawled into the room we figured wouldn't she also have fun too?  Shamefully, she broke her leg as a result, and learned to crawl dragging around a cast on her leg.  Innocent ignorance is dangerous.

2) "Back is best", but Emma wants to sleep on her tummy

I mentioned recently that Emma has started to sleep on her tummy more as well as had been having some rough nights sleeping.  Well, just a few nights ago she slept really good out of the blue.  In fact, we put her to bed around 8pm and when I awoke at 4am she still hadn't woken me up once yet.  I was amazed (and relieved) that she was finally back to sleeping good, but decided to turn on the video monitor just to check on her.  Imagine my horror as I see Emma laying on her tummy face straight down into her bed.  I jumped out of bed so fast that I think my heart stopped beating as I raced to go check on her and make sure she was okay (i.e. breathing!).  When I moved her head, she woke up from her deep sleep.  She was fine (thank goodness), but she gave me such a fright sleeping with her face in the sheet.  I was just getting used to the idea of her sleeping on her tummy with her head turned sideways, but face down was just too much for me to handle.  I rolled her over and then she fully woke up and so I went ahead and nursed her before putting her back to sleep.  Who knows how much longer she would have slept if I hadn't woken her up, but I sure hope she doesn't get in the habit of sleeping faceplanted into the sheets!  My heart can't take it!