What a Way to Pass a Birthday

Poor little Marcus puts everything into his mouth. I know that all babies put everything into their mouths, but Marcus is so much worse - he puts everything into his mouth. Just a few minutes ago I found him in the bathroom with the little round cover that goes over the bolts holding the toilet down (?) in his mouth. (Yuck, I know.) It was firmly stuck between his two bottom teeth that are already out and his two top teeth that are on their way out. It was completely stuck and holding his mouth wide open, but he didn't cry at all until I took it away.

We try so hard to keep things off of the floor and keep him monitored, so that he doesn't choke on anything, but with two other kids running around, that's a hard thing to do. Last Thursday, just before leaving to take Brian to clinic, I put him downstairs in the living room, then ran upstairs to herd Alyssa and Ethan to the car. After getting them strapped into their seats, I heard Marcus cry. It was a "Ow! That hurt!" sort of cry, but I figured that he just bumped his head on something, which is also something that he does all the time. So I picked him up, he had snot all over his face (Which was normal last week, too. He had a horrible cold.) so I wiped him off and headed for the car.

It was then I noticed that he was coughing, and after a few seconds, I noticed that he was choking. I figured he was coughing on snot of phlem, so I let him at it for a minute while I strapped him into his car seat, but when he was still coughing, I pulled him out again and held him upside down a bit, and pat his back. At this point, I still thought he was coughing on his snot, so I put him back in the car seat and ran inside to get the snot-sucker thing. When I sucked his snot, I noticed that there was some blood in it, but again, his throat could have just been irritated from his cold.

So this is when Brian came outside and realized that Marcus was really chocking on something. He did a finger sweep and didn't feel anything, then he actually stuck his finger in Marcus's throat, and he felt something in there, but when he felt it, it got pushed down into Marcus's stomach.

He wasn't chocking anymore, so he was doing fine. All was well. I mentally went though all of the things that could have been on our floor, and figured (and hoped) that it was probably a piece of stale food, and that's why it got stuck and tore his throat up on the way down.

Friday, June 6, Marcus turned seven months old. With it being a Friday, we picked Brian up from clinic, then went to the Compass Room theater to see "Horton Hears a Who." We all loved it, even Marcus, then we went home and headed to bed. It was exactly 8:06 (I know, because I looked at the clock just before) when Marcus started to cry a painful cry. We were trying to have scripture study, so I took him upstairs to change his diaper, hoping that would help. We got the kids ready for bed, Brian tucked them in, and Marcus was still crying and clinging to my shoulders. He wouldn't nurse - he just wanted to cling to me and cry. Poor kid.

We saw two options: 1) whatever he swallowed the day before was on its way out, or 2) he had an ear infection. Brian got out his ottoscope (how do you spell that?) and confirmed that his ear drums were inflamed, so that was probably it. Now, I've been lucky that none of my kids have ever had ear infections, so this was our first time dealing with it. (Or so we thought.)

We treated him for an ear infection for the next four hours. Brian ran to the store, and we put some drops in his ears. I nursed him when he was willing, but mostly, I just held him, rocked him, and let him sleep when he would. I took him up to our bed when he went to sleep, then at 12:20 (Again, I checked the clock. I do that.) he woke up crying. We put the drops in his ears, he let out a big poop, and cried some more.

I changed his diaper, and when I was wiping his bum, I saw something sticking out of it. I pulled it out, which made him cry even more (of course) and found that for the last four hours a 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch piece of hard, square-shaped tin foil had been working it's way through his system. Oh, it was so sad. It explained everything. After it was out, and his diaper was back on, he stopped crying, layed his head back, and went right to sleep.

For the record, I don't denounce Brian's diagnosis of the inflamed ear drums. They were probably inflamed from his cold, just not bad enough to make him hurt. Since this whole ordeal we've been watching closer than ever to make sure everything is kept off of the floor. Yesterday Alyssa came running up the stairs, yelling "Marcus has a green tongue!" and it turned out that he had swallowed a leaf that was on the floor. I've gotten pretty good at the baby Heimlich Maneuver since Thursday, and I was able to successfully get Marcus to cough up the leaf. We've definitely got to be careful, because this kid will eat anything.