Choker

Remember my rule against going to Walmart in December? Well now I have one more reason not to go! I took Lexi today as promised in my last post, and as we were walking in she said she wanted to put some money in the Salvation Army can. I asked her if she had any money, she just looked at me and said, "Mommy always gives me some of hers!" So of course I dug around in my wallet and found her some change, and the bellringer lady looked at me, showed me a peppermint candy in her hand, and said "Mom?" Meaning, of course, is it ok if she has this. I nodded (and of course snickered under my breath that everyone thinks Lexi is my daughter instead of granddaughter) without giving it another thought.

Later, after we had picked out all the gifts, or I should say after SHE picked out all the gifts, even the underwear for the little boy, we were headed for the wrapping paper, etc. Suddenly she made this weird noise and I looked at her - her eyes were all big and buggy and watery and she said, "I swallowed my candy!" Apparently it didn't go all the way down and was stuck somewhere in her little esophagus ... she FREAKED OUT. It was very clear, by that way, that her breathing was NOT obstructed. I for some reason thought that if she ate something it would push it down ... I realize how stupid that is now, but the child was panicking, crying, "BUT I SHOULD HAVE JUST CHEWED IT UP! NO I SHOULDN'T HAVE EATEN THE CANDY AT ALL!" I'm dragging her to (of course) the opposite end of the store to the groceries, and the first thing I came to was a box of crackers. So I sat down on the floor, opened the box, gave her a cracker, she ate half of it and started bawling again, "IT'S NOT GOING DOWN!" Suddenly my common sense kicked in and I half-dragged her up to a cooler by the checkout stands, flung it open and told her to pick something, anything she wanted (hope she remembers that, it will never happen again). She chose strawberry milk (what??), took one drink, smiled and said "It's gone!" Whew.

OK now I know (and knew all along) that she was never really in any danger, but OH MY GOSH she was breaking my heart because she was so scared! So we went to McDonald's. And she spilled the strawberry milk all down the front of her shirt. And I'm pretty sure I spent at least five bucks more at Walmart than I intended to!