“I could CHOKE?”
“Yes baby. You could choke and DIE.”
Her eyes got big as saucers.
Hey, you don’t mess around when it comes to ingesting foreign objects. I’ve never had to perform the Heimlich and I don’t want to start with my own children.
Then I feel bad and soften it with, “Oh but you’re just fine. You’re just fine. It’s in your tummy and you’re going to poop it out. But it might hurt.”
Her eyes grow wide again.
Okay, so I am a sadist. I don’t want this to happen again. I mean business!
“Oh, it will be fine. Just fine. Just don’t EVER do that again. We only eat food, OK?”
“Okay … not gum?”
“No, just food.”
I spoke to the nurse at our pediatrician’s office and we’ve launched Operation Poop the Pearl. She laughed and assured me that kids eat weird things all the time.
But Southern ladies in training should wear their pearls, not eat them.
