Mmmm, Pony Tail Holders

Every Wednesday night we go to my husband's parents' house for dinner. He picks up the kids and goes straight there, I meet them all there after work. Last Wednesday was no different, as far as schedule goes; but it was a very different kind of evening.

During dinner I gave my nine month old a few small bites of mashed potatoes. He isn't quite on table foods yet, but he absolutely loves mashed potatoes and gobbles them down. However, he wasn't real interested in eating them. He would hold them in his mouth and then push them out. This was completely out of the ordinary but I thought he must just not be that hungry. After our meal was finished I warmed up his baby food and began feeding him. He gagged with every bite. At first we thought he just didn't like the turkey, so I opened his peach cobbler. Peach cobbler is one of his favorites; so when the behavior continued I knew something just wasn't right!

I could hear rattling in his chest. At first I thought he may have some of the food stuck in his throat and if he would just cough it would come up. I started patting his back and encouraging him to cough. I'm quite sure that those in my company thought I had completely lost it.

"Cough baby, ehhh, ehhh. Cough."

It took three tries of getting him to mimic my cough before it was extremely obvious what was causing the problem - a pony tail holder! He coughed up a yellow, ribbed, tubular pony tail holder. I fished it from his mouth and he grinned.

I would have thought it came from our house; as our three year old has dozens of these colorful bits for her hair - but he had not been to our house for nearly twelve hours and I knew this bobble hadn't been in his throat for twelve hours. It was obvious he had picked it up at daycare. Perhaps a little friend got too close to his curious grasp and he snatched it out of her hair. Maybe she dropped it while playing and he swooped in to get this prized treasure. Regardless of how it "all went down" it indeed went down my nine month old's throat.

I called daycare the next morning.

"Sue, can I speak to you a moment?" I said, calmly.

"Sure, let me go in the office where I can hear you." and she placed me on hold briefly.

I explained the situation to her, just as I did above. Once finished, I asked, "Did any of the little girls lose a yellow pony tail holder yesterday?"

"Yes, yes, that would be Emma. She was wearing it all day and the girls in the room kept trying to keep it in her hair. In the afternoon it was missing and they searched and searched for it - they couldn't find it."

"Well, we found it! I'm fairly certain you don't want it back though," I chuckled.

While the situation was extremely serious, I knew I wasn't going to catch any flies with vinegar. She was extremely apologetic and told me they would look into what they could do to still handle the issue of hair falling into little eyes - while maintaining safety for the little fingers that put things into little mouths.

Overall, it all turned out ok. I'm just very thankful that we were able to figure this one out. It could have turned out dramatically and gravely different!