Seriously dude...

What is with Zach?! I swear the dude's regressing. We've let him have "3 years and up" toys since around the time he turned two because he never put them in his mouth. He never tried to chew on die cast cars, or Thomas and Friends or any of that stuff.

Now that he's turned three and can "officially" have that stuff? He's putting everything into his mouth! We've tried, "Only food goes in your mouth"; "If something goes in your mouth it gets taken away" (and that happens immediately, no other warning); "You'll lose all the big kid toys if they keep going in your mouth"; etc, etc. We have no idea what's up. It seemed to be working. Until yesterday.

Zach was in the playroom when I started to smell that familiar, yet dreaded, smell wafting from the basement. Yup. He's still in diapers. That's a whole 'nother blog post series right there. I told him to head upstairs to his room so I could change his butt. He went up ahead of me, but went to the living room. I kept going to his room and called him up. He toddled up. I picked him up and laid him on his change table. I was just about to start de-pantsing him when I heard that non-sound every parent dreads. The non-sound of my child choking. I immediately angled him forward, bent him over himself and out it came. (Thank God it came right out!) He had put the little metal piece that the magnet sticks to on the tv stand doors! What the frick, Zach!!

I yelled, "That is NOT ok!" He looked at me, dam about to burst. I said, "Did that scare you?" His little reply came back, "Uh huh." I told him, "It scared Mommy, too." We just hugged for a minute. I squeezed him pretty hard. Then I tried to use it as an example of why we don't put things, other than food or drink, in our mouths! I tried to take him back, "Was that scary when that piece went down your throat and you couldn't breathe?" ... "What if it didn't come out like it did this time?" ...

I hope that scary incident changes things going forward... If there is a next time I might not be right there... I don't even want to think about it...

** On a side note: I knew as soon as I pushed him up I had done it wrong. Since he had been on his back, I shouldn't have propped him up that way. In doing so, I could have easily helped the piece go down farther. I should have rolled him over so he was hanging over the side of the change table. That way gravity would not have been working against us. Luckily, it all turned out ok.